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CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Introduction i 

Bimi 21 

Namgay Doola 33 

The Recrudescence of Imray 55 

Moti Guj — Mutineer 79 

The Mutiny of the Mavericks 95 

At the End of the Passage 131 

The Man Who Was 169 

A Conference of the Powers 199 

Without Benefit of Clergy 227 

The Mark of the Beast 271 

The Head of the District 297 


MINE OWN PEOPLE 










































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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


“I Broke Down der Door mit my 

Shoulder” ( See page 30) . Frontispiece 
Photogravure by John Andrew & Son after 
original by W. Kirkpatrick 

He Looked ... at the Thing under 


the Table-cloth 74 

Mezzogravure by John Andrew & Son after 
original by W. Kirkpatrick 

He Held out His Shaking Hand .... 234 

Mezzogravure by John Andrew dr Son after 
original by W. Kirkpatrick 

Fleete sat on the Ground and Re-. . . . 
fused to Move 276 

Mezzogravure by John Andrew & Son after 
original by W. Kirkpatrick 


MINE OWN PEOPLE 


INTRODUCTION 


TT would be difficult to answer the general 
“*■ question whether the books of the world 
grow, as they multiply, as much better as one 
might suppose they ought, with such a lesson 
of wasteful experiment spread perpetually be- 
hind them. There is no doubt, however, that 
in one direction we profit largely by this educa- 
tion : whether or not we have become wiser to 
fashion, we have certainly become keener to 
enjoy. We have acquired the sense of a partic- 
ular quality which is precious beyond all others 
— so precious as to make us wonder where, at 
such a rate, our posterity will look for it, and 
how they will pay for it. After tasting many 
essences we find freshness the sweetest of all. 
We yearn for it, we watch for it and lie in wait 
for it, and when we catch it on the wing (it 
flits by so fast) we celebrate our capture with 
extravagance. We feel that after so much has 
come and gone it is more and more of a feat 
and a tour de force to be fresh. The torment- 
ing part of the phenomenon is that, in any par- 


2 


INTRODUCTION 


ticular key, it can happen but once — by a sad 
failure of the law that inculcates the repetition 
of goodness. It is terribly a matter of acci- 
dent; emulation and imitation have a fatal ef- 
fect upon it. It is easy to see, therefore, what 
importance the epicure may attach to the brief 
moment of its bloom. While that lasts we all 
are epicures. 

This helps to explain, I think, the unmistak- 
able intensity of the general relish for Mr. 
Rudyard Kipling. His bloom lasts, from 
month to month, almost surprisingly — by 
which I mean that he has not worn out even by 
active exercise the particular property that 
made us all, more than a year ago, so precipi- 
tately drop everything else to attend to him. 
He has many others which he will doubtless 
always keep; but a part of the potency attach- 
ing to his freshness, what makes it as exciting 
as a drawing of lots, is our instinctive convic- 
tion that he cannot, in the nature of things, 
keep that; so that our enjoyment of him, so 
long as the miracle is still wrought, has both 
the charm of confidence and the charm of sus- 
pense. And then there is the further charm, 
with Mr. Kipling, that this same freshness in 
such a very strange affair of its kind so mixed 
and various and cynical, and, in certain lights, 


INTRODUCTION 


3 


so contradictory of itself. The extreme recent- 
ness of his inspiration is as enviable as the tale 
is startling that his productions tell of his being 
at home, domesticated and initiated, in this 
wicked and weary world. At times he strikes 
us as shockingly precocious, at others as se- 
renely wise. On the whole, he presents himself 
as a strangely clever youth who has stolen the 
formidable mask of maturity and rushes about, 
making people jump with the deep sounds, the 
sportive exaggerations of tone, that issue from 
its painted lips. He has this mark of a real vo- 
cation, that different spectators may like him — 
must like him, I should almost say — for differ- 
ent things; and this refinement of attraction, 
that to those who reflect even upon their pleas- 
ures he has as much to say as to those who 
never reflect upon anything. Indeed there is a 
certain amount of room for surprise in the fact 
that, being so much the sort of figure that the 
hardened critic likes to meet, he should also be 
the sort of figure that inspires the multitude 
with confidence — for a complicated air is, in 
general, the last thing that does this. 

By the critic who likes to meet such a brist- 
ling adventurer as Mr. Kipling I mean of 
course the critic for whom the happy accident 
of character, whatever form it may take, is 


4 


INTRODUCTION 


more of a bribe to interest than the promise of 
some character cherished in theory — the ap- 
pearance of justifying some foregone conclu- 
sion as to what a writer of a book “ought,” in 
the Ruskinian sense, to be ; the critic, in a word, 
who has, a priori , no rule for a literary produc- 
tion but that it shall have genuine life. Such a 
critic (he gets much more out of his opportuni- 
ties, I think, than the other sort) likes a writer 
exactly in proportion as he is a challenge, an 
appeal to interpretation, intelligence, ingenu- 
ity, to what is elastic in the critical mind — in 
proportion indeed as he may be a negation of 
things familiar and taken for granted. He 
feels in this case how much more play and sen- 
sation there is for himself. 

Mr. Kipling, then, has the character that fur- 
nishes plenty of play and of vicarious experi- 
ence — that makes any perceptive reader fore- 
see a rare luxury. He has the great merit of 
being a compact and convenient illustration of 
the surest source of interest in any painter of 
life — that of having an identity as marked as a 
window-frame. He is one of the illustrations, 
taken near at hand, that help to clear up the 
vexed question in the novel or the tale, of 
kinds, camps, schools, distinctions, the right 
way and the wrong way; so very positively 


INTRODUCTION 


3 


does he contribute to the showing that there are 
just as many kinds, as many ways, as many 
forms and degrees of the “right,” as there are 
personal points in view. It is the blessing of the 
art he practices that it is made up of experience 
conditioned, infinitely, in this personal way — 
the sum of the feeling of life as reproduced 
by innumerable natures ; natures that feel 
through all their differences, testify through 
their diversities. These differences, which 
make the identity, are of the individual; they 
form the channel by which life flows through 
him, and how much he is able to give us of life 
— in other words, how much he appeals to us — 
depends on whether they form it solidly. 

This hardness of the conduit, cemented with 
a rare assurance, is perhaps the most striking 
idiosyncrasy of Mr. Kipling; and what makes 
it more remarkable is that accident of his ex- 
treme youth which, if we talk about him at all, 
we can not affect to ignore. I cannot pretend 
to give a biography or a chronology of the au- 
thor of “Soldiers Three,” but I cannot over- 
look the general, the importunate fact that, 
confidently as he has caught the trick and habit 
of this sophisticated world, he has not been 
long of it. His extreme youth is indeed what 
I may call his window-bar — the support on 


6 


INTRODUCTION 


which he somewhat rowdily leans while he 
looks down at the human scene with his pipe in 
his teeth; just as his other conditions (to men- 
tion only some of them), are his prodigious 
facility, which is only less remarkable than his 
stiff selection; his unabashed temperament, his 
flexible talent, his smoking-room manner, his 
familiar friendship with India — established so 
rapidly, and so completely under his control; 
his delight in battle, his “cheek” about women 
— and indeed about men and about everything ; 
his determination not to be duped, his “impe- 
rial” fibre, his love of the inside view, the pri- 
vate soldier and the primitive man. I must 
add further to this list of attractions the re- 
markable way in which he makes us aware that 
he has been put up to the whole thing directly 
by life (miraculously, in his teens), and not 
by the communication of others. These ele- 
ments, and many more, constitute a singularly 
robust little literary character (our use of the 
diminutive is altogether a note of endearment 
and enjoyment) which, if it has the rattle of 
high spirits and is in no degree apologetic or 
shrinking, yet offers a very liberal pledge in the 
way of good faith and immediate performance. 
Mr. Kipling's performance comes off before 
the more circumspect have time to decide 


INTRODUCTION 


7 


whether they like him or not, and if you have 
seen it once you will be sure to return to the 
show. He makes us prick up our ears to the 
good news that in the smoking-room too there 
may be artists ; and indeed to an intimation still 
more refined — that the latest development of 
the modern also may be, most successfully, for 
the canny artist to put his victim off his guard 
by imitating the amateur (superficially, of 
course) to the life. 

These, then, are some of the reasons why 
Mr. Kipling may be dear to the analyst as well 
as, M. Renan says, to the simple. The simple 
may like him because he is wonderful about In- 
dia, and India has not been “done” ; while there 
is plenty left for the morbid reader in the sur- 
prises of his skill and the Horiture of his form, 
which are so oddly independent of any distinc- 
tively literary note in him, any bookish associa- 
tion. It is as one of the morbid that the writer 
of these remarks (which doubtless only too 
shamefully betray his character) exposes him- 
self as most consentingly under the spell. The 
freshness arising from a subject that — by a 
good fortune I do not mean to under-estimate 
— has never been “done,” is after all less of an 
affair to build upon than the freshness residing 
in the temper of the artist. Happy indeed is 


8 


INTRODUCTION 


Mr. Kipling, who can command so much of 
both kinds. It is still as one of the morbid, no 
doubt — that is, as one of those who are capable 
of sitting up all night for a new impression of 
talent, of scouring the trodden field for one lit- 
tle spot of green — that I find our young author 
quite most curious in his air, and not only in his 
air, but in his evidently very real sense, of 
knowing his way about life. Curious in the 
highest degree and well worth attention is such 
an idiosyncrasy as this in a young Anglo-Sax- 
on. We meet it with familiar frequency in the 
budding talents of France, and it startles and 
haunts us for an hour. After an hour, how- 
ever, the mystery is apt to fade, for we find that 
the wondrous initiation is not in the least gen- 
eral, is only exceedingly special, and is, even 
with this limitation, very often rather conven- 
tional. In a word, it is with the ladies that the 
young Frenchman takes his ease, and more 
particularly with ladies selected expressly to 
make this attitude convincing. When they 
have let him off, the dimnesses too often en- 
compass him. But for Mr. Kipling there are 
no dimnesses anywhere, and if the ladies are 
indeed violently distinct they are not only 
strong notes in a universal loudness. This 
loudness fills the ears of Mr. Kipling’s admir- 


INTRODUCTION 


9 


ers (it lacks sweetness, no doubt, for those 
who are not of the number), and there is really 
only one strain that is absent from it — the 
voice, as it were, of the civilized man ; in whom 
I of course also include the civilized woman. 
But this is an element that for the present one 
does not miss — every other note is so articulate 
and direct. 

It is a part of the satisfaction the author 
gives us that he can make us speculate as to 
whether he will be able to complete his picture 
altogether (this is as far as we presume to go 
in meddling with the question of his future) 
without bringing in the complicated soul. On 
the day he does so, if he handles it with any- 
thing like the cleverness he has already shown, 
the expectation of his friends will take a great 
bound. Meanwhile, at any rate, we have Mul- 
vaney, and Mulvaney is after all tolerably com- 
plicated. He is only a six-foot saturated Irish 
private, but he is a considerable pledge of more 
to come. Hasn’t he, for that matter, the tongue 
of a hoarse siren, and hasn’t he also mysteries 
and infinitudes almost Carlylese? Since I am 
speaking of him I may as well say that, as an 
evocation, he has probably led captive those of 
Mr. Kipling’s readers who have most given up 
resistance. He is a piece of portraiture of the 


10 


INTRODUCTION 


largest, vividest kind, growing and growing on 
the painter’s hands without ever outgrowing 
them. I can’t help regarding him, in a certain 
sense, as Mr. Kipling’s tutelary deity — a land- 
mark in the direction in which it is open to him 
to look furthest. If the author will only go as 
far in this direction as Mulvaney is capable of 
taking him, (and the inimitable Irishman is, 
like Voltaire’s Habakkuk, capable de tout), he 
may still discover a treasure and find a reward 
for the services he has rendered the winner of 
Dinah Shadd. I hasten to add that the truly 
appreciative reader should surely have no quar- 
rel with the primitive element in Mr. Kipling’s 
subject-matter, or with what, for want of a 
better name, I may call his love of low life. 
What is that but essentially a part of his fresh- 
ness ? And for what part of his freshness are 
we exactly more thankful than for just this 
smart jostle that he gives the old stupid super- 
stition that the amiability of a story-teller is the 
amiability of the people he represents — that 
their vulgarity, or depravity, or gentility, or 
fatuity are tantamount to the same qualities in 
the painter itself? A blow from which, appar- 
ently, it will not easily recover is dealt this in- 
fantine philosophy by Mr. Howells when, with 
the most distinguished dexterity and all the de- 


INTRODUCTION 


ii 


tachment of a master, he handles some of the 
clumsiest, crudest, most human things in life — 
answering surely thereby the play-goers in the 
sixpenny gallery who howl at the representa- 
tive of the villain when he comes before the 
curtain. 

Nothing is more refreshing than this active, 
disinterested sense of the real ; it is doubtless 
the quality for the want of more of which our 
English and American fiction has turned so wo- 
fully stale. We are ridden by the old conven- 
tionalities of type and small proprieties of ob- 
servance — by the foolish baby-formula (to put 
it sketchily) of the picture and the subject. Mr. 
Kipling has all the air of being disposed to lift 
the whole business off the nursery carpet, and 
of being perhaps even more able than he is dis- 
posed. One must hasten of course to parenthe- 
size that there is not, intrinsically, a bit more 
luminosity in treating of low life and of primi- 
tive man than of those whom civilization has 
kneaded to a finer paste; the only luminosity in 
either case is in the intelligence with which the 
thing is done. But it so happens that, among 
ourselves, the frank, capable outlook, when 
turned upon the vulgar majority, the coarse, re- 
ceding edges of the social perspective, borrows 
a charm from being new ; such a charm as, for 


12 


INTRODUCTION 


instance, repetition has already despoiled it of 
among the French — the hapless French who 
pay the penalty as well as enjoy the glow of 
living intellectually so much faster than we. It 
is the most inexorable part of our fate that we 
grow tired of everything, and of course in due 
time we may grow tired even of what explorers 
shall come back to tell us about the great grimy 
condition, or, with unprecedented items and de- 
tails, about the grey middle state which darkens 
into it. But the explorers, bless them! may 
have a long day before that ; it is early to trou- 
ble about reactions, so that we must give 
them the benefit of every presumption. We are 
thankful for any boldness and any sharp curi- 
osity, and that is why we are thankful for Mr. 
Kipling’s general spirit and for most of his ex- 
cursions. 

Many of these, certainly, are into a region 
not to be designated as superficially dim, 
though indeed the author always reminds us 
that India is above all the land of mystery. A 
large part of his high spirits, and of ours, 
comes doubtless from the amusement of such 
vivid, heterogeneous material, from the irre- 
sistible magic of scorching suns, subject em- 
pires, uncanny religions, uneasy garrisons and 
smothered-up women — from heat and color 


INTRODUCTION 


13 


and danger and dust. India is a portentous im- 
age, and we are duly awed by the familiarities 
it undergoes at Mr. Kipling’s hand and by the 
fine impunity, the sort of fortune that favors 
the brave, of his want of awe. An abject hu- 
mility is not his strong point, but he gives us 
something instead of it — vividness and droll- 
ery, the vision and the thrill of many things, 
the misery and strangeness of most, the per- 
sonal sense of a hundred queer contacts and 
risks. And then in the absence of respect he 
has plenty of knowledge, and if knowledge 
should fail him he would have plenty of inven- 
tion. Moreover, if invention should ever fail 
him, he would still have the lyric string and 
the patriotic chord, on which he plays admi- 
rably ; so that it may be said he is a man of re- 
sources. What he gives us, above all, is the 
feeling of the English manner and the English 
blood in conditions they have made at once so 
much and so little their own; with manifesta- 
tions grotesque enough in some of his satiric 
sketches and deeply impressive in some of his 
anecdotes of individual responsibility. 

His Indian impressions divide themselves in- 
to three groups, one of which, I think, very 
much outshines the others. First to be men- 
tioned are the tales of native life, curious 


14 


INTRODUCTION 


glimpses of custom and superstition, dusky 
matters not beholden of the many, for which 
the author has a remarkable Hair. Then comes 
the social, the Anglo-Indian episode, the study 
of administrative and military types, and of 
the wonderful rattling, riding ladies who, at 
Simla and more desperate stations, look out for 
husbands and lovers ; often, it would seem, and 
husbands and lovers of others. The most bril- 
liant group is devoted wholly to the common 
soldier, and of this series it appears to me that 
too much good is hardly to be said. Here Mr. 
Kipling, with all his off-handedness, is a mas- 
ter ; for we are held not so much by the greater 
or less oddity of the particular yarn — some- 
times it is scarcely a yarn at all, but something 
much less artificial — as by the robust attitude 
of the narrator, who never arranges or glosses 
or falsifies, but makes straight for the common 
and the characteristic. I have mentioned the 
great esteem in which I hold Mulvaney — surely 
a charming man and one qualified to adorn a 
higher sphere. Mulvaney is a creation to be 
proud of, and his two comrades stand as firm 
on their legs. In spite of Mulvaney’s social 
possibilities, they are all three finished brutes; 
but it is precisely in the finish that we delight. 
Whatever Mr. Kipling may relate about them 


INTRODUCTION 


15 


forever will encounter readers equally fasci- 
nated and unable fully to justify their faith. 

Are not those literary pleasures after all the 
most intense which are the most perverse and 
whimsical, and even indefensible? There is a 
logic in them somewhere, but it often lies be- 
low the plummet of criticism. The spell may 
be weak in a writer who has every reasonable 
and regular claim, and it may be irresistible in 
one who presents himself with a style corres- 
ponding to a bad hat. A good hat is better 
than a bad one, but a conjurer may wear either. 
Many a reader will never be able to say what 
secret human force lays its hand upon him 
when Private Ortheris, having sworn “quietly 
into the blue sky,” goes mad with homesick- 
ness by the yellow river and raves for the bas- 
est sights and sounds of London. I can scarce- 
ly tell why I think “The Courting of Dinah 
Shadd” a masterpiece (though, indeed, I can 
make a shrewd guess at one of the reasons), 
nor would it be worth while perhaps to attempt 
to defend the same pretension in regard to “On 
Greenhow Hill” — much less to trouble the tol- 
erant reader of these remarks with a statement 
of how many more performances in the nature 
of “The End of the Passage” (quite admitting 
even that they might not represent Mr. Kip- 


i6 


INTRODUCTION 


ling at his best) I am conscious of a latent rel- 
ish for. One might as well admit while one is 
about it that one has wept profusely over “The 
Drums of the Fore and Aft,” the history of the 
“Dutch courage” of two dreadful dirty little 
boys, who, in the face of Afghans scarcely 
more dreadful, saved the reputation of their 
regiment and perished, the least mawkishly in 
the world, in a squalor of battle incomparably 
expressed. People who know how peaceful 
they are themselves and have no bloodshed to 
reproach themselves with needn’t scruple to 
mention the glamor that Mr. Kipling’s intense 
militarism has for them, and how astonishing 
and contagious they find it, in spite of the un- 
romantic complexion of it — the way it bristles 
with all sorts of ugliness and technicalities. 
Perhaps that is why I go all the way even with 
“The Gadsbys” — the Gadsbys were so con- 
nected (uncomfortably, it is true) with the 
army. There is fearful fighting — or a fearful 
danger of it — in “The Man Who Would be 
King”; is that the reason we are deeply af- 
fected by this extraordinary tale ? It is one of 
them, doubtless, for Mr. Kipling has many rea- 
sons, after all, on his side, though they don’t 
equally call aloud to be uttered. 

One more of them, at any rate, I must add to 


INTRODUCTION 


1 7 


these unsystematized remarks — it is the one 
I spoke of a shrewd guess at in alluding to 
“The Courting of Dinah Shadd.” The talent 
that produces such a tale is a talent eminently 
in harmony with the short story, and the short 
story is, on our side of the Channel and of the 
Atlantic, a mine which will take a great deal of 
working. Admirable is the clearness with 
which Mr. Kipling perceives this — perceives 
what innumerable chances it gives, chances of 
touching life in a thousand different places, 
■taking it up in innumerable pieces, each a speci- 
men and an illustration. In a word, he appre- 
ciates the episode, and there are signs to show 
that this shrewdness will, in general, have long 
innings. It will find the detachable, compres- 
sible “case” an admirable, flexible form; the 
cultivation of which may well add to the mis- 
trust already entertained by Mr. Kipling, if his 
manner does not betray him, for what is 
clumsy and tasteless in the time-honored prac- 
tice of the “plot.” It will fortfy him in the 
conviction that the vivid picture has a greater 
communicative value than the Chinese puzzle. 
There is little enough “plot” in such a perfect 
little piece of hard representation as “The end 
of the Passage,” to cite again only the most 
salient of twenty examples. 


i8 


INTRODUCTION 


But I am speaking of our author’s future, 
which is the luxury that I mean to forbid my- 
self — precisely because the subject is so tempt- 
ing. There is nothing in the world (for the 
prophet) so charming as to prophesy, and as 
there is nothing so inconclusive the tendency 
should be repressed in proportion as the oppor- 
tunity is good. There is a certain want of cour- 
tesy to a peculiarly contemporaneous present 
even in speculating, with a dozen differential 
precautions, on the question of what will be- 
come in the later hours of the day of a talent 
that has got up so early. Mr. Kipling’s actual 
performance is like a tremendous walk before 
breakfast, making one welcome the idea of the 
meal, but consider with some alarm the hours 
still to be traversed. Yet if his breakfast is 
all to come, the indications are that he will be 
more active than ever after he has had it. 
Among these indications are the unflagging 
character of his pace and the excellent form, 
as they say in athletic circles, in which he gets 
over the ground. We don’t detect him stum- 
bling; on the contrary, he steps out quite as 
briskly as at first, and still more firmly. There 
is something zealous and craftsman-like in him 
which shows that he feels both joy and respon- 
sibility. A whimsical, wanton reader, haunted 


INTRODUCTION 


19 


by a recollection of all the good things he has 
seen spoiled ; by a sense of the miserable, or, at 
any rate, the inferior, so many continuations 
and endings, is almost capable of perverting 
poetic justice to the idea that it would be even 
positively well for so surprising a producer to 
remain simply the fortunate suggestive, uncon- 
firmed and unqualified representative of what 
he has actually done. We can always refer to 
that. 


Henry James. 




















■V 



























. I 






















BIMI 


HE orang-outang in the big iron cage 



A lashed to the sheep-pen began the dis- 
cussion. The night was stifling hot, and as 
Hans Breitmann and I passed him, dragging 
our bedding to the fore-peak of the steamer, 
he roused himself and chattered obscenely. 
He had been caught somewhere in the Malayan 
Archipelago, and was going to England to be 
exhibited at a shilling a head. For four days 
he had struggled, yelled, and wrenched at the 
heavy iron bars of his prison without ceasing, 
and had nearly slain a Lascar incautious 
enough to come within reach of the great hairy 


paw. 


“It would be well for you, mine friend, if 
you was a liddle seasick,” said Hans Breit- 
mann, pausing by the cage. “You haf too 
much Ego in your Cosmos.” 

The orang-outang’s arm slid out negligently 
from between the bars. No one would have 
believed that it would make a sudden snake- 


24 


BIMI 


like rush at the German's breast. The thin 
silk of the sleeping-suit tore out ; Hans stepped 
back unconcernedly, to pluck a banana from a 
bunch hanging close to one of the boats. 

“Too much Ego,” said he, peeling the fruit 
and offering it to the caged devil, who was 
rending the silk to tatters. 

Then we laid out our bedding in the bows, 
among the sleeping Lascars, to catch any breeze 
that the pace of the ship might give us. The 
sea was like smoky oil, except where it turned 
to fire under our forefoot and whirled back 
into the dark in smears of dull flame. There 
was a thunderstorm some miles way ; we could 
see the glimmer of the lightning. The ship’s 
cow, distressed by the heat and the smell of 
the ape-beast in the cage, lowed unhappily from 
time to time in exactly the same key as the 
lookout man at the bows answered the hourly 
call from the bridge. The trampling tune of 
the engines was very distinct, and the jarring 
of the ash-lift, as it was tipped into the sea, 
hurt the procession of hushed noise. Hans lay 
down by my side and lighted a good-night 
cigar. This was naturally the beginning of 
conversation. He owned a voice as soothing 
as the wash of the sea, and stores of experi- 
ences as vast as the sea itself ; for his business 


BIMI 


25 


in life was to wander up and down the world, 
collecting orchids and wild beasts and ethno- 
logical specimens for German and American 
dealers. I watched the glowing end of his 
cigar wax and wane in the gloom, as the sen- 
tences rose and fell, till I was nearly asleep. 
The orang-outang, troubled by some dream of 
the forests of his freedom, began to yell like 
a soul in purgatory, and to wrench madly at 
the bars of the cage. 

“If he was out now dere would not be much 
of us left hereabouts/’ said Hans, lazily. “He 
screams good. See, now, how I shall tame 
him when he stops himself.” 

There was a pause in the outcry, and from 
Hans’ mouth came an imitation of a snake’s 
hiss, so perfect that I almost sprung to my feet. 
The sustained murderous sound ran along the 
deck, and the wrenching at the bars ceased. 
The orang-outang was quaking in an ecstasy 
of pure terror 

“Dot stop him,” said Hans. “I learned dot 
trick in Mogoung Tanjong when I was collect- 
ing liddle monkeys for some peoples in Berlin. 
Efery one in der world is afraid of der mon- 
keys — except der snake. So I blay snake 
against monkey, and he keep quite still. Dere 
was too much Ego in his Cosmos. Dot is der 


26 


BIMI 


soul-custom of monkeys. Are you asleep, or 
will you listen, and I will tell a dale dot you 
shall not pelief ?” 

“There’s no tale in the wide world that I 
can’t believe,” I said. 

“If you have learned pelief you haf learned 
somedings. Now I shall try your pelief. 
Good! When I was collecting dose liddle 
monkeys — it was in ’79 or ’80, und I was in der 
islands of der Archipelago — over dere in der 
dark” — he pointed southward to New Guinea 
generally — “Mein Gott! I would sooner col- 
lect life red devils than liddle monkeys. When 
dey do not bite off your thumbs dey are always 
dying from nostalgia — homesick — for dey haf 
der imperfect soul, which is midway arrested in 
defelopment — und too much Ego. I was dere 
for nearly a year, und dere I found a man 
dot was called Bertran. He was a French- 
man, und he was a goot man — naturalist to the 
bone. Dey said he was an escaped convict, but 
he was a naturalist, und dot was enough for 
me. He would call all her life beasts from der 
forest, und dey would come. I said he was 
St. Francis of Assisi in a new dransmigration 
produced, und he laughed und said he haf never 
preach to der fishes. He sold dem for tripang 
— beche-de-mer. 


BIMI 


27 


“Und dot man, who was king of beasts-tamer 
men, he had in der house shush such anoder as 
dot devil-animal in der cage — a great orang- 
outang dot thought he was a man. He haf 
found him when he was a child — der orang-ou- 
tang — und he was child and brother and opera 
comique all round to Bertran. He had his 
room in dot house — not a cage, but a room — 
mit a bed and sheets, and he would go to bed 
and get up in der morning and smoke his cigar 
und eat his dinner mit Bertran, und walk mit 
him hand-in-hand, which was most horrible. 
Herr Gott! I haf seen dot beast throw him- 
self back in his chair and laugh when Bertran 
haf made fun of me. He was not a beast; he 
was a man, and he talked to Bertran, und Ber- 
tran comprehended, for I have seen dem. Und 
he was always politeful to me except when I 
talk too long to Bertran und say nodings at all 
to him. Den he would pull me away — dis 
great, dark devil, mit his enormous paws — 
shush as if I was a child. He was not a beast, 
he was a man. Dis I saw pefore I know him 
three months, und Bertran he haf saw the 
same ; and Bimi, der orang-outang, haf under- 
stood us both, mit his cigar between his big- 
dog teeth und der blue gum. 

“1 was dere a year, dere und at dere oder 


28 


BIMI 


islands — somedimes for monkeys and some- 
dimes for butterflies und orchits. One time 
Bertran says to me dot he will be married, be- 
cause he haf found a girl dot was good, and 
he inquire if this marrying idea was right. I 
would not say, pecause it was not me dot was 
going to be married. Den he go off courting 
der girl — she was a half-caste French girl — 
very pretty. Haf you got a new light for my 
cigar? Oof! Very pretty. Only I say: 
‘Haf you thought of Bimi? If he pulls me 
away when I talk to you, what will he do to 
your wife? He will pull her in pieces. If I 
was you, Bertran, I would gif my wife for wed- 
ding present der stuff figure of Bimi.’ By dot 
time I had learned somedings about der mon- 
key peoples. ‘Shoot him ?’ says Bertran. ‘He 
is your beast,’ I said ; ‘if he was mine he would 
be shot now.’ 

“Den I felt at der back of my neck der fin- 
gers of Bimi. Mein Gott! I tell you dot he 
talked through dose fingers. It was der deaf- 
and-dumb alphabet all gomplete. He slide his 
hairy arm round my neck, and he tilt up my 
chin und look into my face, shust to see if 
I understood his talk so well as he understood 
mine. 

“ ‘See now dere !’ says Bertran, ‘und you 


BIMI 


29 


would shoot him while he is cuddling you ? Dot 
is der Teuton ingrate!’ 

“But I knew dot I had made Bimi a life’s en- 
emy, pecause his fingers haf talk murder 
through the back of my neck. Next dime I 
see Bimi dere was a pistol in my belt, und he 
touch it once, and I open der breech to show 
him it was loaded. He haf seen der liddle 
monkeys killed in der woods, and he under- 
stood. 

“So Bertran he was married, and he forgot 
clean about Bimi dot was skippin’ alone on der 
beach mit her haf of a human soul in his belly. 
I was see him skip, und he took a big bough 
und thrash der sand till he haf made a great 
hole like a grave. So I says to Bertran : Tor 
any sakes, kill Bimi. He is mad mit der jeal- 
ousy.’ 

“Bertran haf said : ‘He is not mad at all. 
He haf obey and love my wife, und if she 
speaks he will get her slippers,’ und he looked 
at his wife across der room. She was a very 
pretty girl. 

“Den I said to him : ‘Dost thou pretend to 
know monkeys und dis beast dot is lashing him- 
self mad upon der sands, pecause you do not 
talk to him ? Shoot him when he comes to der 
house, for he haf der light in his eyes dot means 


30 


BIMI 


killing — und killing/ Bimi come to der house, 
but dere was no light in his eyes. It was all 
put away, cunning — so cunning — und he fetch 
der girl her slippers, and Bertran turn to me 
und say : ‘Dost thou know him in nine months 
more dan I haf known him in twelve years? 
Shall a child stab his fader? I have fed him, 
und he was my child. Do not speak this non- 
sense to my wife or to me any more.’ 

“Dot next day Bertran came to my house to 
help me make some wood cases for der speci- 
mens, und he tell me dot he haf left his wife a 
liddle while mit Bimi in der garden. Den I 
finish my cases quick, und I say : ‘Let us go 
to your house und get a brink/ He laugh and 
say : ‘Come along, dry mans.’ 

“His wife was not in der garden, und Bimi 
did not come when Bertran called. Und his 
wife did not come when he called, und he 
knocked at her bedroom door und dot was 
shut tight — locked. Den he look at me, und 
his face was white. I broke down the door 
mit my shoulder, und der thatch of der roof 
was torn into a great hole, und der sun came 
in upon der floor. Haf you ever seen paper 
in der waste-basket, or cards at whist on der 
table scattered? Dere was no wife dot could 
be seen. I tell you dere was noddings in dot 
room dot might be a woman. Dere was stuff 


BIMI 


3i 


on der floor, und dot was all. I looked at dese 
things und I was very sick ; but Bertran looked 
a little longer at what was upon the floor und 
der walls, und der hole in der thatch. Den he 
pegan to laugh, soft and low, und I knew und 
thank Got dot he was mad. He nefer cried, 
he nefer prayed. He stood still in der door- 
way und laugh to himself. Den he said : ‘She 
haf locked herself in dis room, and he haf torn 
up der thatch. Fi done. Dot is so. We will 
mend der thatch und wait for Bimi. He will 
surely come/ 

“I tell you we waited ten days in dot house, 
after der room was made into a room again, 
and once or twice we saw Bimi cornin’ a liddle 
way from der woods. He was afraid pecause 
he haf done wrong. Bertran called him when 
he was come to look on the tenth day, und 
Bimi come skipping along der beach und mak- 
ing noises, mit a long piece of black hair in his 
hands. Den Bertran laugh and say, ‘Fi done !’ 
shust as if it was a glass broken upon der 
table; und Bimi come nearer, und Bertran 
was honey-sweet in his voice and laughed to 
himself. For three days he made love to 
Bimi, pecause Bimi would not let himself be 
touched. Den Bimi come to dinner at der 
same table mit us, und der hair on his hands 
was all black und thick mit — mit what had 


32 


BIMI 


dried on his hands. Bertran gave him sanga- 
ree till Bimi was drunk and stupid, und den — ” 

Hans paused to puff at his cigar. 

“And then?” said I. 

“Und den Bertran kill him with his hands, 
und I go for a walk upon der beach. It was 
Bertran’s own piziness. When I come back 
der ape he was dead, und Bertran was dying 
abofe him ; but still he laughed a little und low, 
and he was quite content. Now you know der 
formula uf der strength of der orang-outang 
— it is more as seven to one in relation to man. 
But Bertran, he haf killed Bimi mit sooch 
dings as Gott gif him. Dot was der mer- 
icle.” 

The infernal clamor in the cage recom- 
menced. “Aha! Dot friend of ours haf still 
too much Ego in his Cosmos. Be quiet, 
thou!” 

Hans hissed long and venomously. We 
could hear the great beast quaking in his cage. 

“But why in the world didn’t you help Ber- 
tran instead of letting him be killed ?” I asked. 

“My friend,” said Hans, composedly 
stretching himself to slumber, “it was not nice 
even to mineself dot I should lif after I had 
seen dot room wit der hole in der thatch. 
Und Bertran, he was her husband. Goot- 
night, und sleep well.” 


NAMGAY DOOLA 




NAMGAY DOOLA 


O NCE upon a time there was a king who 
lived on the road to Thibet, very many 
miles in the Himalaya Mountains. His king- 
dom was 11,000 feet above the sea, and ex- 
actly four miles square, but most of the miles 
stood on end, owing to the nature of the coun- 
try. His revenues were rather less than £400 
yearly, and they were expended on the mainte- 
nance of one elephant and a standing army of 
five men. He was tributary to the Indian gov- 
ernment, who allowed him certain sums for 
keeping a section of the Himalaya-Tibet road 
in repair. He further increased his revenues by 
selling timber to the railway companies, for he 
would cut the great deodar trees in his own 
forest and they fell thundering into the Sutlej 
River and were swept down to the Plains, 300 
miles away, and became railway ties. Now 
and again this king, whose name does not mat- 
ter, would mount a ring-streaked horse and 
ride scores of miles to Simlatown to confer 
with the lieutenant-governor on matters of 
state, or assure the viceroy that his sword was 

35 


36 


NAMGAY DOOLA 


at the service of the queen-empress. Then the 
viceroy would cause a ruffle of drums to be 
sounded and the ring-streaked horse and the 
cavalry of the state — two men in tatters — and 
the herald who bore the Silver Stick before the 
king would trot back to their own place, which 
was between the tail of a heaven-climbing gla- 
cier and a dark birch forest. 

Now, from such a king, always remember- 
ing that he possessed one veritable elephant 
and could count his descent for 1,200 years, 
I expected, when it was my fate to wander 
through his dominions, no more than mere 
license to live. 

The night had closed in rain, and rolling 
clouds had blotted out the lights of the vil- 
lages in the valley. Forty miles away, 
untouched by cloud or storm, the white shoul- 
der of Dongo Pa — the Mountain of the Coun- 
cil of the Gods — upheld the evening star. The 
monkeys sung sorrowfully to each other as 
they hunted for dry roots in the fern-draped 
trees, and the last puff of the day-wind 
brought from the unseen villages the scent of 
damp wood smoke, hot cakes, dripping under- 
growth, and rotting pine-cones. That smell 
is the true smell of the Himalayas, and if it 
once gets into the blood of a man he will, at 


NAMGAY DOOLA 


3 7 


the last, forgetting- everything else, return to 
the Hills to die. The clouds closed and the 
smell went away, and there remained nothing 
in all the world except chilling white mists and 
the boom of the Sutlej River. 

A fat-tailed sheep, who did not want to die, 
bleated lamentably at my tent-door. He was 
scuffling with the prime minister and the direc- 
tor-general of public education, and he was a 
royal gift to me and my camp servants. I 
expressed my thanks suitably and inquired if I 
might have audience of the king. The prime 
minister readjusted his turban — it had fallen 
off in the struggle — and assured me that the 
king would be very pleased to see me. There- 
fore I despatched two bottles as a foretaste, 
and when the sheep had entered upon another 
incarnation, climbed up to the king’s palace 
through the wet. He had sent his army to 
escort me, but it stayed to talk with my cook. 
Soldiers are very much alike all the world 
over. 

The palace was a four-roomed, white- 
washed mud-and-timber house, the finest in all 
the Hills for a day’s journey. The king was 
dressed in a purple velvet jacket, white mus- 
lin trousers, and a saffron-yellow turban of 
price. He gave me audience in a little car- 


3 « 


NAMGAY DOOLA 


peted room opening off the palace court-yard, 
which was occupied by the elephant of state. 
The great beast was sheeted and anchored 
from trunk to tail, and the curve of his back 
stood out against the sky line. 

The prime minister and the director-general 
of public instruction were present to introduce 
me; but all the court had been dismissed lest 
the two bottles aforesaid should corrupt their 
morals. The king cast a wreath of heavy, 
scented flowers round my neck as I bowed, and 
inquired how my honored presence had the 
felicity to be. I said that through seeing his 
auspicious countenance the mists of the night 
had turned into sunshine, and that by reason 
of his beneficent sheep his good deeds would 
be remembered by the gods. He said that 
since I had set my magnificent foot in his 
kingdom the crops would probably yield sev- 
enty per cent, more than the average. I said 
that the fame of the king had reached to the 
four corners of the earth, and that the nations 
gnashed their teeth when they heard daily of 
the glory of his realm and the wisdom of his 
moon-like prime minister and lotus-eyed direc- 
tor-general of public education. 

Then we sat down on clean white cushions, 
and I was at the king’s right hand. Three 


NAMGAY DOOLA 


39 


minutes later he was telling me that the con- 
dition of the maize crop was something dis- 
graceful, and that the railway companies 
would not pay him enough for his timber. 
The talk shifted to and fro with the bottles. 
We discussed very many quaint things, and 
the king became confidential on the subject of 
government generally. Most of all he dwelt 
on the shortcomings of one of his subjects, 
who, from what I could gather, had been para- 
lyzing the executive. 

“In the old days,” said the king, “I could 
have ordered the elephant yonder to trample 
him to death. Now I must e’en send him sev- 
enty miles across the hills to be tried, and his 
keep for that time would be upon the state. 
And the elephant eats everything.” 

“What be the man’s crimes, Rajah Sahib?” 
said I. 

“Firstly, he is an ‘outlander,’ and no man of 
mine own people. Secondly, since of my 
favor I gave him land upon his coming, he 
refuses to pay revenue. Am I not the lord of 
the earth, above and below — entitled by right 
and custom to one-eighth of the crop? Yet this 
devil, establishing himself, refuses to pay a 
single tax . . . and he brings a poison- 

ous spawn of babes.” 


40 


NAMGAY D00LA 


“Cast him into jail,” I said. 

“Sahib,” the king answered, shifting a little 
on the cushions, “ once and only once in these 
forty years sickness came upon me so that 
I was not able to go abroad. In that hour I 
made a vow to my God that I would never 
again cut man or woman from the light of 
the sun and the air of God, for I perceived the 
nature of the punishment. How can I break 
my vow? Were it only the lopping off of a 
hand or a foot, I should not delay. But even 
that is imposible now that the English have 
rule. One or another of my people” — he looked 
obliquely at the director-general of public edu- 
cation — “would at once write a letter to the 
viceroy, and perhaps I should be deprived of 
that ruffle of drums.” 

He unscrewed the mouthpiece of his silver 
water-pipe, fitted a plain amber one, and passed 
the pipe to me. “Not content with refusing 
revenue,” he continued, “this outlander refuses 
also to beegar” (this is the corvee or forced 
labor on the roads), “and stirs my people up 
to the like treason. Yet he is, if so he wills, 
an expert log-snatcher. There is none better 
or bolder among my people to clear a block of 
the river when the logs stick fast.” 

“But he worships strange gods,” said the 
prime minister, deferentially. 


NAMGAY DOOLA 


41 


“For that I have no concern,” said the king, 
who was as tolerant as Akbar in matters of 
belief. “To each man his own god, and the 
fire or Mother Earth for us all at the last. 
It is the rebellion that offends me.” 

“The king has an army,” I suggested. 
“Has not the king burned the man’s house, and 
left him naked to the night dews?” 

“Nay. A hut is a hut, and it holds the life 
of a man. But once I sent my army against 
him when his excuses became wearisome. Of 
their heads he brake three across, the top with 
a stick. The other two men ran away. Also 
the guns would not shoot.” 

I had seen the equipment of the infantry. 
One-third of it was an old muzzle-loading 
fowling-piece with ragged rust holes where the 
nipples should have been; one-third a wire- 
bound matchlock with a worm-eaten stock, 
and one-third a four-bore flint duck-gun, with- 
out a flint. 

“But it is to be remembered,” said the king, 
reaching out for the bottle, “that he is a very 
expert log-snatcher and a man of a merry face. 
What shall I do to him, sahib?” 

This was interesting. The timid hill-folk 
would as soon have refused taxes to their king 
as offerings to their gods. The rebel must 
be a man of character. 


42 


NAMGAY DOOLA 


“If it be the king’s permission,” I said, “I 
will not strike my tents till the third day, and 
I will see this man. The mercy of the king is 
godlike, and rebellion is like unto the sin of 
witchcraft. Moreover, both the bottles, and 
another, be empty.” 

“You have my leave to go,” said the king. 

Next morning the crier went through the 
stare proclaiming that there was a log- jam on 
the river and that it behooved all loyal sub- 
jects to clear it. The people poured down 
from their villages to the moist, warm val- 
ley of poppy fields, and the king and I went 
with them. 

Hundreds of dressed deodar logs had 
caught on a snag of rock, and the river was 
bringing down more logs every minute to com- 
plete the blockade. The water snarled and 
wrenched and worried at the timber, while the 
population of the state prodded at the near- 
est logs with poles, in the hope of easing the 
pressure. Then there went up a shout of 
“Namgay Doola! Namgay Doola!” and a 
large, red-haired villager hurried up, stripping 
off his clothes as he ran. 

“That he is. That is the rebel!” said the 
king. “Now will the dam be cleared.” 

“But why has he red hair?” I asked, since 


NAMGAY DOOLA 


43 1 


red hair among hill-folk is as uncommon as 
blue or green. 

“He is an outlander,” said the king. “Well 
done! Oh, well done!” 

Namgay Doola had scrambled on the jam 
and was clawing out the butt of a log with a 
rude sort of a boat-hook. It slid forward 
slowly, as an alligator moves, and three or 
four others followed it. The green water 
spouted through the gaps. Then the villagers 
howled and shouted and leaped among the 
logs, pulling and pushing the obstinate timber, 
and the red head of Namgay Doola was chief 
among them all. The logs swayed and chafed 
and groaned as fresh consignments from up- 
stream battered the now weakened dam. It 
gave way at last in a smother of foam, racing 
butts, bobbing black heads, and a confusion 
indescribable, as the river tossed everything 
before it. I saw the red head go down with 
the last remnants of the jam and disappear 
between the great grinding tree trunks. It 
rose close to the bank, and blowing like a 
grampus, Namgay Doola wiped the water out 
of his eyes and made obeisance to the king. 

I had time to observe the man closely. The 
virulent redness of his shock head and beard 
was most startling, and in the thicket of hair 


44 


NAMGAY DOOLA 


twinkled above high cheek-bones two very 
merry blue eyes. He was indeed an out- 
lander, but yet a Thibetan in language, habit 
and attire. He spoke the Lepcha dialect with 
an indescribable softening of the gutturals. It 
was not so much a lisp as an accent. 

“Whence comest thou?” I asked, wonder- 
ing. 

“From Thibet.” He pointed across the hills 
and grinned. That grin went straight to my 
heart. Mechanically I held out my hand, and 
Namgay Doola took it. No pure Thibetan 
would have understood the meaning of the 
gesture. He went away to look for his 
clothes, and as he climbed back to his village, 
I heard a joyous yell that seemed unaccount- 
ably familiar. It was the whooping of Nam- 
gay Doola. 

“You see now,” said the king, “why I 
would not kill him. He is a bold man among 
my logs, but,” and he shook his head like a 
schoolmaster, “I know that before long there 
will be complaints of him in the court. Let 
us return to the palace and do justice.” 

It was that king’s custom to judge his sub- 
jects every day between eleven and three 
o’clock. I heard him do justice equitably on 
weighty matters of trespass, slander, and a 


NAMGAY DOOLA 


45 

little wife-stealing. Then his brow clouded 
and he summoned me. 

“Again it is Namgay Doola,” he said, 
despairingly. “Not content with refusing reve- 
nue on his own part, he has bound half his vil- 
lage by an oath to the like treason. Never 
before has such a thing befallen me! Nor are 
my taxes heavy.” 

A rabbit-faced villager, with a blush rose 
stuck behind his ear, advanced trembling. He 
had been in Namgay Doola’s conspiracy, but 
had told everything and hoped for the king’s 
favor. 

“Oh, king!” said I, “if it be the king’s will, 
let this matter stand over till the morning. 
Only the gods can do right in a hurry, and it 
may be that yonder villager has lied.” 

“Nay, for I know the nature of Namgay 
Doola; but since a guest asks, let the matter 
remain. Wilt thou, for my sake, speak 
harshly to this red-headed outlander ? He 
may listen to thee.” 

I made an attempt that very evening, but 
for the life of me I could not keep my coun- 
tenance. Namgay Doola grinned so persuas- 
ively and began to tell me about a big brown 
bear in a poppy field by the river. Would I 
care to shoot that bear? I spoke austerely on 


4 6 


NAMGAY DOOLA 


the sin of detected conspiracy and the certainty 
of punishment. Namgay Doola’s face clouded 
for a moment. Shortly afterward he with- 
drew from my tent, and I heard him singing 
softly among the pines. The words were 
unintelligible to me, but the tune, like his 
liquid, insinuating speech, seemed the ghost of 
something strangely familiar. 


“Dir hane mard-i-yemen dir 
To weeree ala gee,” 

crooned Namgay Doola again and again, and 
I racked my brain for that lost tune. It was 
not till after dinner that I discovered some 
one had cut a square foot of velvet from the 
centre of my best camera-cloth. This made 
me so angry that I wandered down the valley 
in the hope of meeting the big brown bear. 
I could hear him grunting like a discontented 
pig in the poppy field as I waited shoulder 
deep in the dew-dripping Indian corn to catch 
him after his meal. The moon was at full 
and drew out the scent of the tasseled crop. 
Then I heard the anguished bellow of a Hima- 
layan cow — one of the little black crummies 
no bigger than Newfoundland dogs. Two 
shadows that looked like a bear and her cub 
hurried past me. I was in the act of firing 


NAMGAY DOOLA 


47 


when I saw that each bore a brilliant red 
head. The lesser animal was trailing some- 
thing rope-like that left a dark track on the 
path. They were within six feet of me, and 
the shadow of the moonlight lay velvet-black 
on their faces. Velvet-black was exactly the 
word, for by all the powers of moonlight 
they were masked in the velvet of my camera- 
cloth. I marveled, and went to bed. 

Next morning the kingdom was in an 
uproar. Namgay Doola, men said, had gone 
forth in the night and with a sharp knife had 
cut off the tail of a cow belonging to the 
rabbit-faced villager who had betrayed him. 
It was sacrilege unspeakable against the holy 
cow ! The state desired his blood, but he had 
retreated into his hut, barricaded the doors and 
windows with big stones, and defied the world. 

The king and I and the populace approached 
the hut cautiously. There was no hope of 
capturing our man without loss of life, for 
from a hole in the wall projected the muzzle 
of an extremely well-cared-for gun — the only 
gun in the state that could shoot. Namgay 
Doola had narrowly missed a villager just 
before we came up. 

The standing army stood. 

It could do no more, for when it advanced 


48 


NAMGAY DOOLA 


pieces of sharp shale flew from the windows. 
To these were added from time to time show- 
ers of scalding water. We saw red heads 
bobbing up and down within. The family of 
Namgay Doola were aiding their sire. Blood- 
curdling yells of defiance were the only answer 
to our prayers. 

“Never,” said the king, puffing, “has such 
a thing befallen my state. Next year I will 
certainly buy a little cannon.” He looked at 
me imploringly. 

“Is there any priest in the kingdom to whom 
he will listen?” said I, for a light was begin- 
ning to break upon me. 

“He worships his own god,” said the prime 
minister. “We can but starve him out.” 

“Let the white man approach,” said Nam- 
gay Doola from within. “All others I will 
kill. Send me the white man.” 

The door was thrown open and I entered 
the smoky interior of a Thibetan hut crammed 
with children. And every child had flaming 
red hair. A fresh-gathered cow’s tail lay on 
the floor, and by its side two pieces of black 
velvet — my black velvet — rudely hacked into 
the semblance of masks. 

“And what is this shame, Namgay Doola?,” 
I asked. 


NAMGAY DOOLA 


49 


He grinned more charmingly than ever. 
“There is no shame,” said he. “I did but cut 
off the tail of that man’s cow. He betrayed 
me. I was minded to shoot him, sahib, but 
not to death. Indeed, not to death; only in 
the legs.” 

“And why at all, since it is the custom to 
pay revenue to the king? Why at all?” 

“By the god of my father, I cannot tell,” 
said Namgay Doola. 

“And who was thy father?” 

“The same that had this gun.” He showed 
me his weapon, a Tower musket, bearing date 
1832 and the stamp of the Honorable East 
India Company. 

“And thy father’s name?” said I. 

“Timla Doola,” said he. “At the first, I 
being then a little child, it is in my mind that 
he wore a red coat.” 

“Of that I have no doubt; but repeat the 
name of thy father twice or thrice.” 

• He obeyed, and I understood whence the 
puzzling accent in his speech came. “Thimla 
Dhula!” said he, excitedly. “To this hour 
I worship his god.” 

“May I see that god ?” 

“In a little while — at twilight time.” 

“Rememberest thou aught of thy father’s 
speech ?” 


NAMGAY DOOLA 


50 

“It is long ago. But there was one word 
which he said often. Thus, ‘ ’Shun!’ Then 
I and my brethren stood upon our feet, our 
hands to our sides, thus.” 

“Even so. And what was thy mother ?” 

“A woman of the Hills. We be Lepchas of 
Darjiling, but me they call an outlander be- 
cause my hair is as thou seest.” 

The Thibetan woman, his wife, touched him 
on the arm gently. The long parley outside 
the fort had lasted far into the day. It was 
now close upon twilight — the hour of the 
Angelus. Very solemnly the red-headed brats 
rose from the floor and formed a semicircle. 
Namgay Doola laid his gun aside, lighted 
a little oil-lamp, and set it before a recess in 
the wall. Pulling back a whisp of dirty cloth, 
he revealed a worn brass crucifix leaning 
against the helmet badge of a long- forgotten 
East India Company’s regiment. “Thus did 
my father,” he said, crossing himself clumsily. 
The wife and children followed suit. Then, 
all together, they struck up the wailing chant 
that I heard on the hillside : 

“Dir hane mard-i-yemen dir 
To weeree ala gee.” 

I was puzzled no longer. Again and again 


NAMGAY DOOLA 


51 


they sung, as if their hearts would break, 
their version of the chorus of “The Wearing 
of the Green”: 


.. “They’re hanging men and women, too, 

For the wearing of the green.” 

A diabolical inspiration came to me. One of 
the brats, a boy about eight years old — could 
he have been in the fields last night? — was 
watching me as he sung. I pulled out a rupee, 
held the coin between finger and thumb, and 
looked — only looked — at the gun leaning 
against the wall. A grin of brilliant and per- 
fect comprehension overspread his porringer- 
like face. Never for an instant stopping the 
song, he held out his hand for the money, and 
then slid the gun to my hand. I might have 
shot Namgay Doola dead as he chanted, but 
I was satisfied. The inevitable blood-instinct 
held true. Namgay Doola drew the curtain 
across the recess. Angelus was over. 

“Thus my father sung. There was much 
more, but I have forgotten, and I do not know 
the purport of even these words, but it may 
be that the god will understand. I am not of 
this people, and I will not pay revenue.” 

“And why?” 

Again that soul-compelling grin. “What 


52 


NAMGAY DOOLA 


occupation would be to me between crop and 
crop? It is better than scaring bears. But 
these people do not understand.” 

He picked the masks off the floor and looked 
in my face as simply as a child. 

“By what road didst thou attain knowledge 
to make those deviltries?” I said, pointing. 

“I cannot tell. I am but a Lepcha of Dar- 
jiling, and yet the stuff” — 

“Which thou hast stolen,” said I. 

“Nay, surely. Did I steal? I desired it 
so. The stuff — the stuff. What else should 
I have done with the stuff?” He twisted the 
velvet between his fingers. 

“But the sin of maiming the cow — consider 
that.” 

“Oh, sahib, the man betrayed me ; the 
heifer’s tail waved in the moonlight, and I had 
my knife. What else should I have done? 
The tail came off ere I was aware. Sahib, 
thou knowest more than I.” 

“That is true,” said I. “Stay within the 
door. I go to speak to the king.” The popula- 
tion of the state were ranged on the hillside. 
I went forth and spoke. 

“Oh, king,” said I, “touching this man, 
there be two courses open to thy wisdom. 
Thou canst either hang him from a tree — he 


NAMGAY DOOLA 


53 


and his brood — till there remains no hair that 
is red within thy land.” 

“Nay,” said the king. “Why should I hurt 
the little children?” 

They had poured out of the hut and were 
making plump obeisances to everybody. Nam- 
gay Doola waited at the door with his gun 
across his arm. 

“Or thou canst, discarding their impiety of 
the cow-maiming, raise him to honor in thy 
army. He comes of a race that will not pay 
revenue. A red flame is in his blood which 
comes out at the top of his head in that 
glowing hair. Make him chief of thy army. 
Give him honor as may befall and full allow- 
ance of work, but look to it, oh, king, that 
neither he nor his hold a foot of earth from 
thee henceforward. Feed him with words and 
favor, and also liquor from certain bottles that 
thou knowest of, and he will be a bulwark of 
defense. But deny him even a tuftlet of grass 
for his own. This is the nature that God has 
given him. Moreover, he has brethren” — 

The state groaned unanimously. 

“But if his brethren come they will surely 
fight with each other till they die; or else the 
one will always give information concerning 
the other. Shall he be of thy army, oh, king? 
Choose.” 


54 


NAMGAY DOOLA 


The king bowed his head, and I said : 
“Come forth, Namgay Doola, and command 
the king’s army. Thy name shall no more be 
Namgay in the mouths of men, but Patsay 
Doola, for, as thou hast truly said, I know.” 

Then Namgay Doola, new-christened Pat- 
say Doola, son of Timlay Doola — which is 
Tim Doolan — clasped the king’s feet, cuffed 
the standing army, and hurried in an agony 
of contrition from temple to temple making 
offerings for the sin of cattle-maiming. 

And the king was so pleased with my perspi- 
cacity that he offered to sell me a village for 
£20 sterling. But I buy no village in the 
Himalayas so long as one red head flares be- 
tween the tail of the heaven-climbing glacier 
and the dark birch forest. 

I know that breed, 


THE RECRUDESCENCE OF IMRAY 






















THE RECRUDESCENCE OF IMRAY. 


T MRAY had achieved the impossible. With- 
A out warning, for no conceivable motive, in 
his youth and at the threshold of his career 
he had chosen to disappear from the world — 
which is to say, the little Indian station where 
he lived. Upon a day he was alive, well, 
happy, and in great evidence at his club, among 
the billiard-tables. Upon a morning he was 
not, and no manner of search could make sure 
where he might be. He had stepped out of his 
place; he had not appeared at his office at the 
proper time, and his dog-cart was not upon the 
public roads. For these reasons and because 
he was hampering in' a microscopical degree 
the administration of the Indian Empire, the 
Indian Empire paused for one microscopical 
moment to make inquiry into the fate of 
Imray. Ponds were dragged, wells were 
plumbed, telegrams were dispatched down the 
lines of railways and to the nearest seaport 
town — 1,200 miles away — but Imray was not 
at the end of the drag-ropes nor the telegrams. 
He was gone, and his place knew him no 


58 


THE RECRUDESCENCE 


more. Then the work of the great Indian 
Empire swept forward, because it could not 
be delayed, and Imray, from being a man, be- 
came a mystery — such a thing as men talk 
over at their tables in the club for a month and 
then forget utterly. His guns, horses, and 
carts were sold to the highest bidder. His 
superior officer wrote an absurd letter to his 
mother, saying that Imray had unaccount- 
ably disappeared and his bungalow stood 
empty on the road. 

After three or four months of the scorching 
hot weather had gone by, my friend Strick- 
land, of the police force, saw fit to rent the 
bungalow from the native landlord. This was 
before he was engaged to Miss Youghai — an 
affair which has been described in another 
place — and while he was pursuing his investi- 
gations into native life. His own life was 
sufficiently peculiar, and men complained of his 
manners and customs. There was always food 
in his house, but there were no regular times 
for meals. He eat, standing up and walking 
about, whatever he might find on the side- 
board, and this is not good for the insides 
of human beings. His domestic equipment 
was limited to six rifles, three shot-guns, five 
saddles, and a collection of stiff-jointed 


OF IMRAY 


59 


masheer rods, bigger and stronger than the 
largest salmon rods. These things occupied 
one half of his bungalow, and the other half 
was given up to Strickland and his dog Tiet- 
jens — an enormous Rampur slut, who sung 
when she was ordered, and devoured daily the 
rations of two men. She spoke to Strickland 
in a language of her own, and whenever, in 
her walks abroad she saw things calculated 
to destroy the peace of Her Majesty the Queen 
Empress, she returned to her master and gave 
him information. Strickland would take steps 
at once, and the end of his labors was trouble 
and fine and imprisonment for other people. 
The natives believed that Tietjens was a famil- 
iar spirit, and treated her with the great rever- 
ence that is born of hate and fear. One room 
in the bungalow was set apart for her special 
use. She owned a bedstead, a blanket, and a 
drinking-trough, and if any one came into 
Strickland’s room at night, her custom was to 
knock down the invader and give tongue till 
some one came with a light. Strickland owes 
his life to her. When he was on the frontier in 
search of the local murderer who came in the 
grey dawn to send Strickland much further 
than the Andaman Islands, Tietjens caught 
him as he was crawling into Strickland’s tent 


6o 


THE RECRUDESCENCE 


with a dagger between his teeth, and after his 
record of iniquity was established in the eyes 
of the law, he was hanged. From that date 
Tietjens wore a collar of rough silver and 
employed a monogram on her night blanket, 
and the blanket was double-woven Kashmir 
cloth, for she was a delicate dog. 

Under no circumstances would she be sepa- 
rated from Strickland, and when he was ill 
with fever she made great trouble for the 
doctors because she did not know how to help 
her master and would not allow another crea- 
ture to attempt aid. Macarnaght, of the 
Indian Medical Service, beat her over the head 
with a gun, before she could understand that 
she must give room for those who could give 
quinine. 

A short time after Strickland had taken 
Imray’s bungalow, my business took me 
through that station, and naturally, the club 
quarters being full, I quartered myself upon 
Strickland. It was a desirable bungalow, 
eight-roomed, and heavily thatched against 
any chance of leakage from rain. Under the 
pitch of the roof ran a ceiling cloth, which 
looked just as nice as a white-washed ceiling 0 
The landlord had repainted it when Strick- 
land took the bungalow, and unless you knew 


OF IMRAY 


61 


how Indian bungalows were built you would 
never have suspected that above the cloth lay 
the dark, three-cornered cavern of the roof, 
where the beams and the under side of the 
thatch harbored all manner of rats, bats, ants, 
and other things. 

Tietjens met me in the veranda with a bay 
like the boom of the bells of St. Paul’s, and put 
her paws on my shoulders and said she was 
glad to see me. Strickland had contrived 
to put together that sort of meal which he 
called lunch, and immediately after it was fin- 
ished went out about his business. I was left 
alone with Tietjens and my own affairs. The 
heat of the summer had broken up and given 
place to the warm damp of the rains. There 
was no motion in the heated air, but the rain 
fell like bayonet rods on the earth, and flung 
up a blue mist where it splashed back again. 
The bamboos and the custard apples, the poin- 
settias and the mango-trees in the garden 
stood still while the warm water lashed 
through them, and the frogs began to sing 
among the aloe hedges. A little before the 
light failed, and when the rain was at its 
worst, I sat in the back veranda and heard the 
water roar from the eaves, and scratched my- 
self because I was covered with the thing they 


62 


THE RECRUDESCENCE 


called prickly heat. Tietjens came out with 
me and put her head in my lap, and was very 
sorrowful, so I gave her biscuits when tea was 
ready, and I took tea in the back veranda on 
account of the little coolness I found there. 
The rooms of the house were dark behind me. 
I could smell Strickland’s saddlery and the oil 
on his guns, and I did not the least desire to 
sit among these things. My own servant 
came to me in the twilight, the muslin of his 
clothes clinging tightly to his drenched body, 
and told me that a gentleman had called and 
wished to see some one. Very much against 
my will, and because of the darkness of the 
rooms, I went into the naked drawing-room, 
telling my man to bring the lights. There 
might or might not have been a caller in the 
room — it seems to me that I saw a figure by 
one of the windows, but when the lights came 
there was nothing save the spikes of the rain 
without and the smell of the drinking earth 
in my nostrils. I explained to my man that he 
was no wiser than he ought to be, and went 
back to the veranda to talk to Tietjens. She 
had gone out into the wet and I could hardly 
coax her back to me — even with biscuits with 
sugar on top. Strickland rode back, dripping 
wet, just before dinner, and the first thing he 
said was: 


OF IMRAY 


63 


“Has any one called ?” 

I explained, with apologies, that my servant 
had called me into the drawing-room on a 
false alarm, or that some loafer had tried to 
call on Strickland, and, thinking better of it, 
fled after giving his name. Strickland ordered 
dinner without comment, and since it was a 
real dinner, with white table-cloth attached, we 
sat down. 

At nine o'clock Strickland wanted to go to 
bed, and I was tired too. Tietjens, who had 
been lying underneath the table, rose up and 
went into the least-exposed veranda as soon as 
her master moved to his own room, which 
was next to the stately chamber set apart for 
Tietjens. If a mere wife had wished to sleep 
out-of-doors in that pelting rain, it would not 
have mattered, but Tietjens was a dog, and 
therefore the better animal. I looked at 
Strickland, expecting to see him flog her with 
a whip. He smiled queerly, as a man would 
smile after telling some hideous domestic trag- 
edy. “She has done this ever since I moved 
in here." 

The dog was Strickland's dog, so I said 
nothing, but I felt all that Strickland felt in 
being made light of. Tietjens encamped out- 
side my bedroom window, and storm after 


6 4 


THE RECRUDESCENCE 


storm came up, thundered on the thatch, and 
died away. The lightning spattered the sky 
as a thrown egg spattered a barn door, but 
the light was pale blue, not yellow; and look- 
ing through my slit bamboo blinds, I could see 
the great dog standing, not sleeping, in the 
veranda, the hackles alift on her back, and her 
feet planted as tensely as the drawn wire rope 
of a suspension bridge. In the very short 
pauses of the thunder I tried to sleep, but it 
seemed that some one wanted me very badly. 
He, whoever he was, was trying to call me by 
name, but his voice was no more than a husky 
whisper. Then the thunder ceased and Tiet- 
jens went into the garden and howled at the 
low moon. Somebody tried to open my door, 
and walked about and through the house, and 
stood breathing heavily in the verandas, and 
just when I was falling asleep I fancied that I 
heard a wild hammering and clamoring above 
my head or on the door. 

I ran into Strickland’s room and asked him 
whether he was ill and had been calling for 
me. He was lying on the bed half-dressed, 
with a pipe in his mouth. “I thought you’d 
come,” he said. “Have I been walking around 
the house at all?” 

I explained that he had been in the dining- 


OF IMRAY 


65 


room and the smoking-room and two or three 
other places; and he laughed and told me to 
go back to bed. I went back to bed and slept 
till the morning, but in all my dreams I was 
sure I was doing some one an injustice in not 
attending to his wants. What those wants were 
I could not tell, but a fluttering, whispering, 
bolt-fumbling, luring, loitering some one was 
reproaching me for my slackness, and through 
all the dreams I heard the howling of Tietjens 
in the garden and the thrashing of the rain. 

I was in that house for two days, and 
Strickland went to his office daily, leaving me 
alone for eight or ten hours a day, with Tiet- 
jens for my only companion. As long as the 
full light lasted I was comfortable, and so was 
Tietjens; but in the twilight she and I moved 
into the back veranda and cuddled each other 
for company. We were alone in the house, 
but for all that it was fully occupied by a ten- 
ant with whom I had no desire to interfere. 
I never saw him, but I could see the curtains 
between the rooms quivering where he had 
just passed through; I could hear the chairs 
creaking as the bamboos sprung under a 
weight that had just quitted them; and I could 
feel when I went to get a book from the din- 
ing-room that somebody was waiting in the 


66 


THE RECRUDESCENCE 


shadows of the front veranda till I should 
have gone away. Tietjens made the twilight 
more interesting by glaring into the dark- 
ened rooms, with every hair erect, and follow- 
ing the motions of something I could not see. 
She never entered the rooms, but her eyes 
moved, and that was quite sufficient. Only 
when my servant came to trim the lamps and 
make all light and habitable, she would come 
in with me and spend her time sitting on her 
haunches watching an invisible extra man as 
he moved about behind my shoulder. Dogs 
are cheerful companions. 

I explained to Strickland, gently as might 
be, that I would go over to the club and find 
for myself quarters there. I admired his hos- 
pitality, was pleased with his guns and rods, 
but I did not much care for his house and its 
atmosphere. He heard me out to the end, and 
then smiled very wearily, but without con- 
tempt, for he is a man who understands 
things. “Stay on,” he said, “and see what 
this thing means. All you have talked about 
I have known since I took the bungalow. 
Stay on and wait. Tietjens has left me. Are 
you going too? 

I had seen him through one little affair con- 
nected with an idol that had brought me to the 


OF IMRAY 


67 


doors of a lunatic asylum, and I had no de- 
sire to help him through further experiences. 
He was a man to whom unpleasantnesses ar- 
rived as do dinners to ordinary people. 

Therefore I explained more clearly than 
ever that I liked him immensely, and would 
be happy to see him in the daytime, but that I 
didn’t care to sleep under his roof. This was 
after dinner, when Tietjens had gone out to 
lie in the veranda. 

“ ’Pon my soul, I don’t wonder,” said 
Strickland, with his eyes on the ceiling-cloth. 
“Look at that !” 

The tails of two snakes were hanging be- 
tween the cloth and the cornice of the wall. 
They threw long shadows in the lamp-light. 
“If you are afraid of snakes, of course” — 
said Strickland. “I hate and fear snakes, be- 
cause if you look into the eyes of any snake 
you will see that it knows all and more of 
man’s fall, and that it feels all the contempt 
that the devil felt when Adam was evicted 
from Eden. Besides which its bite is gener- 
ally fatal, and it bursts up trouser legs.” 

“You ought to get your thatch overhauled,” 
I said. '“Give me a masheer rod, and we’ll 
poke ’em down.” 

“They’ll hide among the roof beams/’ said 


68 


THE RECRUDESCENCE 


Strickland. “I can’t stand snakes overhead. 
I’m going up. If I shake ’em down, stand by 
with a cleaning rod and break their backs.” 

I was not anxious to assist Strickland in his 
work, but I took the loading-rod and waited 
in the dining-room, while Strickland brought 
a gardener’s ladder from the veranda and set 
it against the side of the room. The snake 
tails drew themselves up and disappeared. 
We could hear the dry rushing scuttle of long 
bodies running over the baggy cloth. Strick- 
land took a lamp with him, while I tried to 
make clear the danger of hunting roof snakes 
between a ceiling cloth and a thatch, apart 
from the deterioration of property caused by 
ripping out ceiling-cloths. 

“Nonsense!” said Strickland. “They’re 
sure to hide near the walls by the cloth. The 
bricks are too cold for ’em, and the heat of the 
room is just what they like.” He put his hand 
to the corner of the cloth and ripped the rotten 
stuff from the cornice. It gave a great sound 
of tearing, and Strickland put his head 
through the opening into the dark angle of the 
roof beams. I set my teeth and lifted the 
loading-rod, for I had not the least knowledge 
of what might descend. 

“H’m,” said Strickland; and his voice 


OF IMRAY 


69 


rolled and rumbled in the roof. “There’s room 
for another set of rooms up here, and, by 
Jove! some one is occupying ’em.” 

“Snakes?” I said down below. 

“No. It’s a buffalo. Hand me up the two 
first joints of a masheer rod, and I’ll prod it. 
It’s lying on the main beam.” 

I handed up the rod. 

“What a nest for owls and serpents! No 
wonder the snakes live here,” said Strickland, 
climbing further into the roof. I could see his 
elbow thrusting with the rod. “Come out of 
that, whoever you are! Look out! Heads be- 
low there! It’s tottering.” 

I saw the ceiling-cloth nearly in the centre 
of the room bag with a shape that was press- 
ing it downward and downward toward the 
lighted lamps on the table. I snatched a lamp 
out of danger and stood back. Then the cloth 
ripped out from the walls, tore, split, swayed 
and shot down upon the table something that 
I dared not look at till Strickland had slid 
down the ladder and was standing by my side. 

He did not say much, being a man of few 
words, but he picked up the loose end of the 
tablecloth and threw it over the thing on the 
table. 

“It strikes me,” said he, pulling down the 


70 


THE RECRUDESCENCE 


lamp, “our friend Imray has come back. Oh! 
you would, would you?” 

There was a movement under the cloth, and 
a little snake wriggled out, to be back-broken 
by the butt of the masheer rod. I was suffi- 
ciently sick to make no remarks worth record- 
ing. 

Strickland meditated and helped himself to 
drinks liberally. The thing under the cloth 
made no more signs of life. 

“Is it Imray?” I said. 

Strickland turned back the cloth for a mo- 
ment and looked. “It is Imray,” he said, “and 
his throat is cut from ear to ear.” 

Then we spoke both together and to our- 
selves: “That’s why he whispered about the 
house.” 

Tietjens, in the garden, began to bay furi- 
ously. A little later her great nose heaved 
upon the dining-room door. 

She sniffed and was still. The broken and 
tattered ceiling-cloth hung down almost to the 
level of the table, and there was hardly room 
to move away from the discovery. 

Then Tietjens came in and sat down, her 
teeth bared, and her forepaws planted. She 
looked at Strickland. 

“It’s bad business, old lady,” said he. “Men 


OF IMRAY 


7 1 


don’t go up into the roofs of their bungalows 
to die, and they don’t fasten up the ceiling- 
cloth behind ’em. Let’s think it out.” 

“Let’s think it out somewhere else,” I said. 

“Excellent idea! Turn the lamps out. We’ll 
get into my room.” 

I did not turn the lamps out. I went into 
Strickland’s room first and allowed him to 
make the darkness. Then he followed me, 
and we lighted tobacco and thought. Strick- 
land did the thinking. I smoked furiously be- 
cause I was afraid. 

“Imray is back,” said Strickland. “The 
question is, who killed Imray? Don’t talk — 
I have a notion of my own. When I took this 
bungalow I took most of Imray’s servants. 
Imray was guileless and inoffensive, wasn’t 
he?” 

I agreed, though the heap under the cloth 
looked neither one thing nor the other. 

“If I call the servants they will stand fast 
in a crowd and lie like Aryans. What do you 
suggest ?” 

“Call ’em in one by one,” I said. 

“They’ll run away and give the news to all 
their fellows,” said Strickland. 

“We must segregate ’em. Do you suppose 
your servant knows anything about it?” 


72 


THE RECRUDESCENCE 


“He may, for aught I know, but I don't 
think it's likely. He has only been here two 
or three days.” 

“What’s your notion?” I asked. 

“I can’t quite tell. How the dickens did the 
man get the wrong side of the ceiling-cloth?” 

There was a heavy coughing outside Strick- 
land’s bedroom door. This showed that Ba- 
hadur Khan, his body-servant, had waked 
from sleep and wished to put Strickland to 
bed. 

“Come in,” said Strickland. “It is a very 
warm night, isn’t it?” 

Bahadur Khan, a great, green-turbaned, 
six-foot Mohammedan, said that it was a 
very warm night, but that there was more rain 
pending, which, by his honor’s favor, would 
bring relief to the country. 

“It will be so, if God pleases,” said Strick- 
land, tugging off his boots. “It is in my 
mind, Bahadur Kahn, that I have worked 
thee remorselessly for many days. — ever since 
that time when thou first earnest into my ser- 
vice. What time was that?” 

“Has the heaven-born forgotten? It was 
when Imray Sahib went secretly to Europe 
without warning given, and I — even I — came 
into the honored service of the protector of 
the poor.” 


OF IMRAY 


73 


“And Imray Sahib went to Europe ?” 

“It is so said among the servants.” 

“And thou wilt take service with him when 
he returns?” 

“Assuredly, sahib. He was a good master 
and cherished his dependents.” 

“That is true. I am very tired, but I can 
go buck-shooting to-morrow. Give me the 
little rifle that I use for black buck; it is in the 
case yonder.” 

The man stooped over the case, handed bar- 
rels, stock, and fore-end to Strickland, who 
fitted them together. Yawning dolefully, 
then he reached down to the gun-case, took a 
solid drawn cartridge, and slipped it into the 
breech of the .360 express. 

“And Imray Sahib has gone to Europe se- 
cretly? That is very strange, Bahadur Khan, 
is it not?” 

“What do I know of the ways of the white 
man, heaven-born?” 

“Very little, truly. But thou shalt know 
more. It has reached me that Imray Sahib 
has returned from his so long journeyings, and 
that even now he lies in the next room, wait- 
ing his servant.” 

“Sahib!” 

The lamp-light slid along the barrels of the 


74 


THE RECRUDESCENCE 


rifle as they leveled themselves against Baha- 
dur Khan’s broad breast. 

“Go, then, and look!” said Strickland. 
“Take a lamp. Thy master is tired, and he 
waits. Go !” 

The man picked up a lamp and went into 
the dining-room, Strickland following, and 
almost pushing him with the muzzle of the 
rifle. He looked for a moment at the black 
depths behind the ceiling-cloth, at the carcass 
of the mangled snake under foot, and last, a 
grey glaze setting on his face, at the thing un- 
der the table-cloth. 

“Hast thou seen?” said Strickland, after 
a pause. 

“I have seen. I am clay in the white man’s 
hands. What does the presence do?” 

“Hang thee within a month! What else?” 

“For killing him? Nay, sahib, consider. 
Walking among us, his servants, he cast his 
eyes upon my child, who was four years old. 
Him he bewitched, and in ten days he died of 
the fever. My child!” 

“What said Imray Sahib?” 

“He said he was a handsome child, and 
patted him on the head; wherefore my child 
died. Wherefore I killed Imray Sahib in the 
twilight, when he came back from office and 


Copyright, 1909, by The Edinburgh Society 


•v 








OF IMRAY 


75 


was sleeping. The heaven-born knows all 
things. I am the servant of the heaven-born. ” 

Strickland looked at me above the rifle, and 
said, in the vernacular : “Thou art witness to 
this saying. He has killed.” 

Bahadur Khan stood ashen grey in the light 
of the one lamp. The need for justification 
came upon him very swiftly. 

“I am trapped,” he said, “but the offence 
was that man’s. He cast an evil eye upon my 
child, and I killed and hid him. Only such 
as are served by devils,” he glared at Tiet- 
jens, crouched stolidly before him, “only such 
could know what I did.” 

“It was clever. But thou shouldst have 
lashed him to a beam with a rope. Now, thou 
thyself wilt hang by a rope. Orderly!” 

A drowsy policeman answered Strickland’s 
call. He was followed by another, and Tiet- 
jens sat still. 

“Take him to the station,” said Strickland. 
“There is a case toward.” 

“Do I hang, then?” said Bahadur Khan, 
making no attempt to escape and keeping his 
eyes on the ground. 

“If the sun shines, or the water runs, thou 
wilt hang,” said Strickland. Bahadur Kahn 
stepped back one pace, quivered, and stood 


y6 THE RECRUDESCENCE 


still. The two policemen waited further or- 
ders. 

“Go!” said Strickland. 

“Nay; but I go very swiftly,” said Baha- 
dur Khan. “Look! I am even now a dead 
man.” 

He lifted his foot, and to the little toe there 
clung the head of the half-killed snake, firm 
fixed in the agony of death. 

“I come of land-holding stock,” said Ba- 
hadur Khan, rocking where he stood. “It 
were a disgrace for me to go to the public 
scaffold, therefore I take this way. Be it re- 
membered that the sahib’s shirts are correctly 
enumerated, and that there is an extra piece 
of soap in his wash-basin. My child was be- 
witched, and I slew the wizard. Why should 
you seek to slay me? My honor is saved, 
and — and — I die.” 

At the end of an hour he died as they die 
who are bitten by the little kariat, and the 
policemen bore him and the thing under the 
table-cloth to their appointed places. They 
were needed to make clear the disappearance 
of Imray. 

“This,” said Strickland, very calmly, as he 
climbed into bed, “is called the nineteenth cen- 
tury. Did you hear what that man said?” 


OF IMRAY 


77 


“I heard,” I answered. “Imray made a mis- 
take.” 

“Simply and solely through not knowing the 
nature and the coincidence of a little seasonal 
fever. Bahadur Khan has been with him for 
four years.” 

I shudderd. My own servant had been with 
me for exactly that length of time. When I 
went over to my own room I found him wait- 
ing, impassive as the copper head on a penny, 
to pull off my boots. 

“What has befallen Bahadur Khan?” said I. 

“He was bitten by a snake and died; the 
rest the sahib knows,” was the answer. 

“And how much of the matter hast thou 
known ?” 

“As much as might be gathered from one 
coming in the twilight to seek satisfaction. 
Gently, sahib. Let me pull off those boots.” 

I had just settled to the sleep of exhaustion 
when I heard Strickland shouting from his 
side of the house : 

“Tietjens has come back to her room!” 

And so she had. The great deerhound was 
couched on her own bedstead, on her own 
blanket, and in the next room the idle, empty 
ceiling-cloth wagged light-heartedly as it 
flailed on the table. 




. I 
























































MOTI GUJ— MUTINEER 























































































MOTI GUJ— MUTINEER 

O NCE upon a time there was a coffee- 
planter in India who wished to clear 
some forest land for coffee-planting. When 
he had cut down all the trees and burned the 
underwood, the stumps still remained. Dyna- 
mite is expensive and slow fire slow. 
The happy medium for stump-clearing is the 
lord of all beasts, who is the elephant. He 
will either push the stump out of the ground 
with his tusks, if he has any, or drag it out 
with ropes. The planter, therefore, hired 
elephants by ones and twos and threes, and 
fell to work. The very best of all the ele- 
phants belonged to the very worst of all the 
drivers or mahouts; and this superior beast’s 
name was Moti Guj. He was the absolute 
property of his mahout, which would never 
have been the case under native rule ; for Moti 
Guj was a creature to be desired by kings, and 
his name, being translated, meant the Pearl 
Elephant. Because the British government 
was in the land, Deesa, the mahout, enjoyed 
his property undisturbed. He was dissipated. 
81 


82 


MOTI GUJ— MUTINEER 


When he had made much money through the 
strength of his elephant, he would get extreme- 
ly drunk and give Moti Guj a beating with 
a tent-peg over the tender nails of the fore- 
feet. Moti Guj never trampled the life out of 
Deesa on these occasions, for he knew that 
after the beating was over, Deesa would em- 
brace his trunk and weep and call him his love 
and his life and the liver of his soul, and give 
him some liquor. Moti Guj was very fond of 
liquor — arrack for choice, though he would 
drink palm-tree toddy if nothing better of- 
fered. Then Deesa would go to sleep between 
Moti Guj’s forefeet, and as Deesa generally 
chose the middle of the public road, and as 
Moti Guj mounted guard over him, and would 
not permit horse, foot, or cart to pass by, traf- 
fic was congested till Deesa saw fit to wake 
up. 

There was no sleeping in the daytime on 
the planter’s clearing : the wages were too high 
to risk. Deesa sat on Moti Guj’s neck and 
gave him orders, while Moti Guj rooted up the 
stumps — for he owned a magnificent pair of 
tusks; or pulled at the end of a rope— for he 
had a magnificent pair of shoulders — while 
Deesa kicked him behind the ears and said he 
was the king of elephants. At evening time 


MOTI GUJ — MUTINEER 83 


Moti Guj would wash down his three hundred 
pounds' weight of green food with a quart of 
arrack, and Deesa would take a share, and sing 
songs between Moti Guj’s legs till it was time 
to go to bed. Once a week Deesa led Moti 
Guj down to the river, and Moti Guj lay on 
his side luxuriously in the shallows, while 
Deesa went over him with a coir swab and 
a brick. Moti Guj never mistook the pound- 
ing blow of the latter for the smack of the 
former that warned him to get up and turn 
over on the other side. Then Deesa would 
look at his feet and examine his eyes, and turn 
up the fringes of his mighty ears in case of 
sores or budding ophthalmia. After inspec- 
tion the two would “come up with a song from 
the sea," Moti Guj, all black and shining, wav- 
ing a torn tree branch twelve feet long in his 
trunk, and Deesa knotting up his own long 
wet hair. 

It was a peaceful, well-paid life till Deesa 
felt the return of the desire to drink deep. He 
wished for an orgy. The little draughts that 
led nowhere were taking the manhood out of 
him. 

He went to the planter, and “My mother’s 
dead," said he, weeping. 

“She died on the last plantation, two months 


84 MOTI GUJ— MUTINEER 


ago, and she died once before that when you 
were working for me last year,” said the plant- 
er, who knew something of the ways of native- 
dom. 

“Then it’s my aunt, and she was just the 
same as a mother to me,” said Deesa, weeping 
more than ever. “She has left eighteen small 
children entirely without bread, and it is I who 
must fill their little stomachs,” said Deesa, 
beating his head on the floor. 

“Who brought you the news?” said the 
planter. 

“The post,” said Deesa. 

“There hasn’t been a post here for the past 
week. Get back to your lines!” 

“A devastating sickness has fallen on my 
village, and all my wives are dying,” yelled 
Deesa, really in tears this time. 

“Call Chihun, who comes from Deesa’s vil- 
lage,” said the planter. “Chihun, has this 
man got a wife?” 

“He?” said Chihun. “No. Not a woman 
of our village would look at him. They’d 
sooner marry the elephant.” 

Chihun snorted. Deesa wept and bellowed. 

“You will get into a difficulty in a minute,” 
said the planter. “Go back to your work!” 

“Now I will speak Heaven’s truth,” gulped 


MOTI GUJ— MUTINEER 


85 


Deesa, with an inspiration. “I haven’t been 
drunk for two months. I desire to depart in 
order to get properly drunk afar off and dis- 
tant from this heavenly plantation. Thus I 
shall cause no trouble.” 

A flickering smile crossed the planter’s face. 
“Deesa,” said he, “you have spoken the truth, 
and I’d give you leave on the spot if anything 
could be done with Moti Guj while you’re 
away. You know that he will only obey your 
orders.” 

“May the light of the heavens live forty 
thousand years. I shall be absent but ten 
little days. After that, upon my faith and 
honor and soul, I return. As to the inconsider- 
able interval, have I the gracious permission 
of the heaven-born to call up Moti Guj ?” 

Permision was granted, and in answer to 
Deesa’s shrill yell, the mighty tusker swung 
out of the shade of a clump of trees where he 
had been squirting dust over himself till his 
master should return. 

“Light of my heart, protector of the drunk- 
en, mountain of might, give ear!” said Deesa, 
standing in front of him. 

Moti Guj gave ear, and saluted with his 
trunk. “I am going away,” said Deesa. 

Moti Guj’s eyes twinkled. He liked jaunts 


86 


MOTI GUJ— MUTINEER 


as well as his master. One could snatch all 
manner of nice things from the roadside then. 

“But you, you fussy old pig, must stay be- 
hind and work.” 

The twinkle died out as Moti Guj tried to 
look delighted. He hated stump-hauling on 
the plantation. It hurt his teeth. 

“I shall be gone for ten days, oh, delectable 
one! Hold up your near forefeet and I’ll im- 
press the fact upon it, warty toad of a dried 
mud-puddle.” Deesa took a tent-peg and 
banged Moti Guj ten times on the nails. Moti 
Guj grunted and shuffled from foot to foot. 

“Ten days,” said Deesa, “you will work and 
haul and root the trees as Chihum here shall 
order you. Take up Chihun and set him on 
your neck!” Moti Guj curled the tip of his 
trunk, Chihun put his foot there, and was 
swung on to the neck. Deesa handed Chihun 
the heavy ankus — the iron elephant goad. 

Chihun thumped Moti Guj’s bald head as a 
paver thumps a curbstone. 

Moti Guj trumpeted. 

“Be still, hog of the backwoods! Chihun’s 
your mahout for ten days. And now bid me 
good-bye, beast after mine own heart. Oh, 
my lord, my king! Jewel of all created ele- 
phants, lily of the herd, preserve your honored 
health; be virtuous. Adieu!” 


MOTI GUJ— MUTINEER 


87 


Moti Guj lapped his trunk round Deesa and 
swung him into the air twice. That was his 
way of bidding him good-bye. 

“He’ll work now,” said Deesa to the planter. 
“Have I leave to go?” 

The planter nodded, and Deesa dived into 
the woods. Moti Guj went back to haul 
stumps. 

Chihun was very kind to him, but he felt 
unhappy and forlorn for all that. Chihun 
gave him a ball of spices, and tickled him un- 
der the chin, and Chihun’s little baby cooed to 
him after the work was over, and Chihun’s 
wife called him a darling; but Moti Guj was a 
bachelor by instinct, as Deesa was. He did 
not understand the domestic emotions. He 
wanted the light of his universe back again — 
the drink and the drunken slumber, the savage 
beatings and the savage caresses. 

None the less he worked well, and the plant- 
er wondered. Deesa had wandered along the 
roads till he met a marriage procession of his 
own caste, and, drinking, dancing, and tippling, 
had drifted with it past all knowledge of the 
lapse of time. 

The morning of the eleventh day dawned, 
and there returned no Deesa. Moti Guj was 
loosened from his ropes for the daily stint. He 


88 


MOTI GUJ— MUTINEER 


swung clear, looked round, shrugged his 
shoulders, and began to walk away, as one 
having business elesewhere. 

“Hi! ho! Come back you!” shouted Chi- 
hun. “Come back and put me on your neck, 
misborn mountain! Return, splendor of the 
hillsides! Adornment of all India, heave to, 
or I’ll bang every toe off your fat forefoot!” 

Moti Guj gurgled gently, but did not obey. 
Chihun ran after him with a rope and caught 
him up. Moti Guj put his ears forward, and 
Chihun knew what that meant, though he tried 
to carry it off with high words. 

“None of your nonsense with me,” said he. 
“To your pickets, devil-son!” 

“Hrrump!” said Moti Guj, and that was all 
— that and the forebent ears. 

Moti Guj put his hands in his pockets, chew- 
ed a branch for a toothpick, and strolled about 
the clearing, making fun of the other elephants 
who had just set to work. 

Chihun reported the state of affairs to the 
planter, who came out with a dog-whip and 
cracked it furiously. Moti Guj paid the white 
man the compliment of charging him nearly a 
quarter of a mile across the clearing and 
“Hrrumphing” him into his veranda. Then 
he stood outside the house, chuckling to him- 


MOTI GUJ— MUTINEER 89 


self, and shaking all over with the fun of it, as 
an elephant will. 

“We’ll thrash him,” said the planter. “He 
shall have the finest thrashing ever elephant re- 
ceived. Give Kala Nag and Nazim twelve 
foot of chain apiece, and tell them to lay on 
twenty.” 

Kala Nag — which means Black Snake — and 
Nazim were two of the biggest elephants in 
the lines, and one of their duties was to admin- 
ister the graver punishment, since no man can 
beat an elephant properly. 

They took the whipping-chains and rattled 
them in their trunks as they sidled up to Moti 
Guj, meaning to hustle him between them. 
Moti Guj had never, in all his life of thirty- 
nine years, been whipped, and he did not intend 
to begin a new experience. So he waited, waiv- 
ing his head from right to left and measuring 
the precise spot in Kala Nag’s fat side 
where a blunt tusk could sink deepest. Kala 
Nag had no tusks; the chain was the badge of 
his authority; but for all that, he swung wide 
of Moti Guj at the last minute, and tried to 
appear as if he had brought the chain out for 
amusement. Nazim turned round and went 
home early. He did not feel fighting fit that 
morning, and so Moti Guj was left standing 
alone with his ears cocked. 


90 


MOTI GUJ— MUTINEER 


That decided the planter to argue no more, 
and Moti Guj rolled back to his amateur in- 
spection of the clearing. An elephant who 
will not work and is not tied up is about as 
manageable as an eighty-one-ton gun loose in 
a heavy seaway. He slapped old friends on 
the back and asked them if the stumps were 
coming away easily; he talked nonsense con- 
cerning labor and the inalienable rights of 
elephants to a long “nooning”; and, wander- 
ing to and fro, he thoroughly demoralized the 
garden till sundown, when he returned to his 
picket for food. 

“If you won’t work you shan’t eat,” said 
Chihun, angrily. “You’re a wild elephant, 
and no educated animal at all. Go back to 
your jungle.” 

Chihun’s little brown baby was rolling on 
the floor of the hut, and stretching out its fat 
arms to the huge shadow in the doorway. Moti 
Guj knew well that it was the dearest thing on 
earth to Chihun. He swung out his trunk 
with a fascinating crook at the end, and the 
brown baby threw itself, shouting, upon it. 
Moti Guj made fast and pulled up till the 
brown baby was crowing in the air twelve feet 
above his father’s head. 

“Great Lord!” said Chihun. “Flour cakes 


MOTI GUJ— MUTINEER 


91 


of the best, twelve in number, two feet across 
and soaked in rum, shall be yours on the in- 
stant, and two hundred pounds weight of 
fresh-cut young sugar-cane therewith. Deign 
only to put down safely that insignificant brat 
who is my heart and my life to me!” 

Moti Guj tucked the brown baby comfort- 
ably between his forefeet, that could have 
knocked into toothpicks all Chihun’s hut, and 
waited for his food. He eat it, and the brown 
baby crawled away. Moti Guj dozed and 
thought of Deesa. One of many mysteries 
connected with the elephant is that his huge 
body needs less sleep than anything else that 
lives. Four or five hours in the night suffice 
— two just before midnight, lying down on 
one side; two just after one o’clock, lying 
down on the other. The rest of the silent 
hours are filled with eating and fidgeting, and 
long grumbling soliloquies. 

At midnight, therefore, Moti Guj strode 
out of his pickets, for a thought had come to 
him that Deesa might be lying drunk some- 
where in the dark forest with none to look 
after him. So all that night he chased 
through the undergrowth, blowing and trum- 
peting and shaking his ears. He went down 
to the river and blared across the shallows 


92 


MOTI GUJ— MUTINEER 


where Dessa used to wash him, but there was 
no answer. He could not find Deesa, but he 
disturbed all the other elephants in the lines, 
and nearly frightened to death some gypsies in 
the woods. 

At dawn Deesa returned to the plantation. 
He had been very drunk indeed, and he ex- 
pected to get into trouble for outstaying his 
leave. He drew a long breath when he saw 
that the bungalow and the plantation were 
still uninjured, for he knew something of Moti 
Guj’s temper, and reported himself with many 
lies and salaams. Moti Guj had gone to his 
pickets for breakfast. The night exercise had 
made him hungry. 

“Call up your beast,” said the planter; and 
Deesa shouted in the mysterious elephant lan- 
guage that some mahouts believe came from 
China at the birth of the world, when ele- 
phants and not men were masters. Moti Guj 
heard and came. Elephants do not gallop. 
They move from places of varying rates of 
speed. If an elephant wished to catch an ex- 
press train he could not gallop, but he could 
catch the train. So Moti Guj was at the 
planter’s door almost before Chihun noticed 
that he had left his pickets. He fell into 
Deesa’s arms trumpeting with joy, and the 


MOTI GUJ— MUTINEER 


93 


man and the beast wept and slobbered over 
each other, and handled each other from head 
to heel to see that no harm had befallen. 

“Now we will get to work,” said Deesa. 
“Lift me up, my son and my joy!” 

Moti Guj swung him up, and the two went 
to the coffee-clearing to look for difficult 
stumps. 

The planter was too astonished to be very 
angry. 




THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 


THE MUTINY OF THE MAVERICKS 


W HEN three obscure gentlemen in San 
Francisco argued on insufficient pre- 
mises, they condemned a fellow-creature to a 
most unpleasant death in a far country which 
had nothing whatever to do with the United 
States. They foregathered at the top of a 
tenement-house in Tehama Street, an unsa- 
vory quarter of the city, and there calling for 
certain drinks, they conspired because they 
were conspirators by trade, officially known as 
the Third Three of the I. A. A. — an institution 
for the propagation of pure light, not to be 
confounded with any others, though it is affi- 
liated to many. The Second Three live in 
Montreal and work among the poor there ; the 
First Three have their home in New York, 
not far from Castle Garden, and write regu- 
larly once a week to a small house near one 
of the big hotels at Boulogne. What happens 
after that, a particular section of Scotland 
Yard knows too well and laughs at. A 
conspirator detests ridicule. More men have 
been stabbed with Lucrezia Borgia daggers 
and dropped into the Thames for laughing at 

97 


9 8 


THE MUTINY OF 


head centres and triangles than for betraying 
secrets; for this is human nature. 

The Third Three conspired over whisky 
cocktails and a clean sheet of note-paper 
against the British Empire and all that lay 
therein. This work is very like what men 
without discernment call politics before a gen- 
eral election. You pick out and discuss in the 
company of congenial friends all the weak 
points in your opponents’ organization, and 
unconsciously dwell upon and exaggerate all 
their mishaps, till it seems to you a miracle that 
the party holds together for an hour. 

"Our principle is not so much active de- 
monstration — that we leave to others' — as pas- 
sive embarrassment to weaken and unnerve,” 
said the first man. "Wherever an organiza- 
tion is crippled, wherever a confusion is 
thrown into any branch of any department, 
we gain a step for those who take on the 
work; we are but the forerunners.” He was 
a German enthusiast, and editor of a news- 
paper, from whose leading articles he quoted 
frequently. 

"That cursed empire makes so many blun- 
ders of her own that unless we doubled the 
year’s average I guess it wouldn’t strike her 
anything special had occurred,” said the sec- 


THE MAVERICKS 


99 


ond man. “Are you prepared to say that all 
our resources are equal to blowing off the 
muzzle of a hundred-ton gun or spiking a ten- 
thousand-ton ship on a plain rock in clear day- 
light? They can beat us at our own game. 
Better join hands with the practical branches; 
we’re in funds now. Try and direct a scare 
in a crowded street. They value their greasy 
hides.” He was the drag upon the wheel, and 
an Americanized Irishman of the second gen- 
eration, despising his own race and hating the 
other. He had learned caution. 

The third man drank his cocktail and spoke 
no word. He was the strategist, but unfor- 
tunately his knowledge of life was limited. He 
picked a letter from his breast-pocket and 
threw it across the table. That epistle to the 
heathen contained some very concise direc- 
tions from the First Three in New York. It 
said : 

“The boom in black iron has already affect- 
ed the eastern markets, where our agents have 
been forcing down the English-held stock 
among the smaller buyers who watch the turn 
of shares. Any immediate operations, such 
as western bears, would increase their willing- 
ness to unload. This, however, cannot be ex- 
pected till they see clearly that foreign iron- 


100 


THE MUTINY OF 


masters are willing to co-operate. Mulcahy 
should be dispatched to feel the pulse of the 
market, and act accordingly. Mavericks are at 
present the best for our purpose. — P. D. Q.” 

As a message referring to an iron crisis in 
Pennsylvania it was interesting, if not lucid. 
As a new departure in organized attack on an 
outlying English dependency, it was more than 
interesting. 

The first man read it through, and mur- 
mured : 

“Already? Surely they are in too great a 
hurry. All that Dhulip Singh could do in 
India he has done, down to the distribution of 
his photographs among the peasantry. Ho! 
Ho! The Paris firm arranged that, and he 
has no substantial money backing from the 
Other Power. Even our agents in India 
know he hasn’t. What is the use of our or- 
ganization wasting men on work that is al- 
ready done? Of course, the Irish regiments 
in India are half mutinous as they stand.” 

This shows how near a lie may come to the 
truth. An Irish regiment, for just so long as 
it stands still, is generally a hard handful to 
control, being reckless and rough. When, 
however, it is moved in the direction of mus- 
ketry-fire, it becomes strangely and unpatriot- 


THE MAVERICKS 


IOI 


ically content with its lot. It has even been 
heard to cheer the queen with enthusiasm on 
these occasions. 

But the notion of tampering with the army 
was, from the point of view of Tehama Street, 
an altogether sound one. There is no shadow 
of stability in the policy of an English govern- 
ment, and the most sacred oaths of England 
would, even if embossed on vellum, find very 
few buyers among colonies and dependencies 
that have suffered from vain beliefs. But 
there remains to England always her army. 
That cannot change, except in the matter of 
uniform and equipment. The officers may 
write to the papers demanding the heads of the 
Horse Guards in default of cleaner redress for 
grievances ; the men may break loose across a 
country town, and seriously startle the pub- 
licans, but neither officers nor men have it in 
their composition to mutiny after the Contin- 
ental manner. The English people, when 
they trouble to think about the army at all, are, 
and with justice, absolutely assured that it is 
absolutely trustworthy. Imagine for a mo- 
ment their emotions on realizing that such and 
such a regiment was in open revolt from 
causes directly due to England’s management 
of Ireland. They would probably send the 


102 


THE MUTINY OF 


regiment to the polls forthwith, and examine 
their own consciences as to their duty to Erin, 
but they would never be easy any more. And 
it was this vague, unhappy mistrust that the 
I. A. A. was laboring to produce. 

“Sheer waste of breath,” said the second 
man, after a pause in the council. “I don’t 
see the use of tampering with their fool-army, 
but it has been tried before, and we must try 
it again. It looks well in the reports. If we 
send one man from here, you may bet your 
life that other men are going too. Order up 
Mulcahy.” 

They ordered him up — a slim, slight, dark- 
haired young man, devoured with that blind, 
rancorous hatred of England that only reaches 
its full growth across the Atlantic. He had 
sucked it from his mother’s breast in the little 
cabin at the back of the northern avenues of 
New York; he had been taught his rights and 
his wrongs, in German and Irish, on the canal 
fronts of Chicago; and San Francisco held 
men who told him strange and awful things 
of the great blind power over the seas. Once, 
when business took him across the Atlantic, 
he had served in an English regiment, and 
being insubordinate, had suffered extremely. 
He drew all his ideas of England that were 


THE MAVERICKS 


103 


not bred by the cheaper patriotic print, from 
one iron-fisted colonel and an unbending ad- 
jutant. He would go to the mines if need 
be to teach his gospel. And he went as his in- 
structions advised p. d. q . — which means “with 
speed” — to introduce embarrassment into an 
Irish regiment, “already half mutinous, quar- 
tered among Sikh peasantry, all wearing min- 
iatures of His Highness Dhulip Singh, Ma- 
haraja of the Punjab, next their hearts, and 
all eagerly expecting his arrival.” Other in- 
formation equally valuable was given him by 
his masters. He was to be cautious, but never 
to grudge expense in winning the hearts of the 
men in the regiment. His mother in New 
York would supply funds, and he was to write 
to her once a month. Life is pleasant for a 
man who has a mother in New York to send 
him £200 a year over and above his regimental 

pay* 

In process of time, thanks to his intimate 
knowledge of drill and musketry exercise, the 
excellent Mulcahy, wearing the corporal’s 
stripe, went out in a troop-ship and joined 
Her Majesty’s Royal Loyal Musketeers, com- 
monly known as the “Mavericks,” because 
they were masterless and unbranded cattle — 
sons of small farmers in County Clare, shoe- 


104 


THE MUTINY OF 


less vagabonds of Kerry, herders of Ballyve- 
gan, much wanted “moonlighters” from the 
bare rainy headlands of the south coast, offi- 
cered by O’Mores, Bradys, Hills, Kilreas, and 
the like. Never, to outward seeming, was 
there more promising material to work on. The 
First Three had chosen their regiment well. 
It feared nothing that moved or talked save 
the colonel and the regimental Roman Catholic 
chaplain, the fat Father Dennis, who held the 
keys of heaven and hell, and glared like an 
angry bull when he desired to be convincing. 
Him also it loved because on occasions of 
stress he was wont to tuck up his cassock and 
charge with the rest into the merriest of the 
fray, where he always found, good man, that 
the saints sent him a revolver when there was 
a fallen private to be protected or — but this 
came as an after-thought — his own grey head 
to be guarded. 

Cautiously as he had been instructed, ten- 
derly and with much beer, Mulcahy opened 
his projects to such as he deemed fittest to list- 
en. And these were, one and all, of that 
quaint, crooked, sweet, profoundly irrespon- 
sible, and profoundly lovable race that fight 
like fiends, argue like children, reason like 
women, obey like men, and jest like their own 


THE MAVERICKS 


105 


goblins of the wrath through rebellion, loyalty, 
want, woe, or war. The underground work 
of a conspiracy is always dull, and very much 
the same the world over. At the end of six 
months — the seed always falling on good 
ground — Mulcahy spoke almost explicitly, 
hinting darkly in the approved fashion at 
dread powers behind him, and advising noth- 
ing more nor less than mutiny. Were they 
not dogs, evily treated? had they not all their 
own and the natural revenges to satisfy? Who 
in these days could do aught to nine hundred 
men in rebellion? who, again, could stay them 
if they broke for the sea, licking up on their 
way other regiments only too anxious to join? 
And afterward . . . here followed windy 

promises of gold and preferment, office and 
honor, ever dear to a certain type of Irish- 
man. 

As he finished his speech, in the dusk of a 
twilight, to his chosen associates, there was a 
sound of a rapidly unslung belt behind him. 
The arm of one Dan Grady flew out in the 
gloom and arrested something. Then said 
Dan: 

“Mulcahy, you’re a great man, an’ you do 
credit to whoever sent you. Walk about a 
bit while we think of it.” Mulcahy departed 
elated. He knew his words would sink deep. 


io6 


THE MUTINY OF 


“Why the triple-dashed asterisks did ye not 
let me curl the tripes out of him?” grunted a 
voice. 

“Because I’m not a fat-headed fool. Boys, 
’tis what he’s been driving at these six months 
— our superior corpril, with his education, and 
his copies of the Irish papers, and his everlast- 
ing beer. He’s been sent for the purpose, and 
that’s where the money comes from. Can 
ye not see? That man’s a gold-mine, which 
Horse Egan here would have destroyed with 
a belt-buckle. It would be throwing away the 
gifts of Providence not to fall in with his little 
plans. Of course we’ll mutiny till all’s dry. 
Shoot the colonel on the parade-ground, mas- 
sacre the company officers, ransack the arsenal, 
and then — boys, did he tell you what next? 
He told me the other night, when he was 
beginning to talk wild. Then we’re to join 
with the niggers, and look for help from Dhu- 
lip Singh and the Russians !” 

“And spoil the best campaign that ever was 
this side of hell! Danny, I’d have lost the 
beer to ha’ given him the belting he requires.” 

“Oh, let him go this awhile, man! He’s 
got no — no constructiveness; but that’s the 
egg-meat of his plan, and you must under- 
stand that I’m in with it, an’ so are you. We’ll 


THE MAVERICKS 


io 7 


want oceans of beer to convince us — firma- 
ments full. We’ll give him talk for his money, 
and one by one all the boys’ll come in, and 
he’ll have a nest of nine hundred mutineers to 
squat in an’ give drink to.” 

“What makes me killing mad is his wanting 
us to do what the niggers did thirty years gone. 
That an’ his pig’s cheek in saying that other 
regiments would come along,” said a Kerry 
man. 

“That’s not so bad as hintin’ we should 
loose off at the colonel.” 

“Colonel be sugared ! I’d as soon as not put 
a shot through his helmet, to see him jump 
and clutch his old horse’s head. But Mulcahy 
talks o’ shootin’ our comp’ny orf’cers accident- 
al.” 

“He said that, did he?” said Horse Egan. 

“Somethin’ like that, anyways. Can’t ye 
fancy ould Barber Brady with a bullet in his 
lungs, coughin’ like a sick monkey an’ sayin’: 
‘Bhoys, I do not mind your gettin’ dhrunk, but 
you must hould your liquor like men. The 
man that shot me is dhrunk. I’ll suspend in- 
vestigations for six hours, while I get this bul- 
let cut out, and then’ ” — 

“An’ then,” continued Horse Egan, for the 
peppery major’s peculiarities of speech and 


io8 


THE MUTINY OF 


manner were as well known as his tanned face 
— “an’ then, ye dissolute, half-baked, putty- 
faced scum o’ Connemara, if I find a man so 
much as lookin’ confused, bedad I’ll coort- 
martial the whole company. A man that 
can’t get over his liquor in six hours is not fit 
to belong to the Mavericks!” 

A shout of laughter bore witness to the 
truth of the sketch. 

“It’s pretty to think of,” said the Kerry man 
slowly. “Mulcahy would have us do all the 
devilment, and get clear himself, someways. 
He wudn’t be takin’ all this fool’s throuble in 
shpoilin’ the reputation of the regiment.” 

“Reputation of your grandmother’s pig!” 
said Dan. 

“Well, an’ he had a good reputation too ; so 
it’s all right. Mulcahy must see his way clear 
out behind him, or he’d not ha’ come so far, 
talkin’ powers of darkness.” 

“Did you hear anything of a regimental 
courtmartial among the Black Boneens, these 
days? Half a company of ’em took one of 
the new draft an’ hanged him by his arms with 
a tent-rope from a third-story veranda. They 
gave no reason for so doin’, but he was half 
dead. I’m thinking that the Boneens are 
short-sighted. It was a friend of Mulcahy’s 


THE MAVERICKS 


109 


or a man in the same trade. They’d a deal 
better ha’ taken his beer,” returned Dan, re- 
flectively. 

"Better still ha’ handed him up to the colo- 
nel,” said Horse Egan, “onless — But sure the 
news wud be all over the counthry an’ give 
the regiment a bad name.” 

"An’ there’d be no reward for that man — 
but he went about talkin’,” said the Kerry 
man, artlessly. 

"You speak by your breed,” said Dan, with 
a laugh. "There was never a Kerry man yet 
that wudn’t sell his brother for a pipe o’ to- 
bacco an’ a pat on the back from a policeman.” 

"Thank God I’m not a bloomin’ Orange- 
man,” was the answer. 

"No, nor never will be,” said Dan. "They 
breed men in Ulster. Would you like to thry 
the taste of one?” 

The Kerry man looked and longed, but for- 
bore. The odds of the battle were too great. 

"Then you’ll not even give Mulcahy a — a 
strike for his money,” said the voice of Horse 
Egan, who regarded what he called "trouble” 
of any kind as the pinnacle of felicity. 

Dan answered not at all, but crept on tiptoe, 
with large strides, to the mess-room, the men 
following. The room was empty. In a 


no 


THE MUTINY OF 


corner, cased like the King of Dahomey’s state 
umbrella, stood the regimental colors. Dan 
lifted them tenderly, and unrolled in the light 
of the candles the record of the Mavericks — 
tattered, worn, and hacked. The white satin 
was darkened everywhere with big brown 
stains, the gold threads on the crowned harp 
were frayed and discolored, and the red bull, 
the totem of the Mavericks, was coffee-hued. 
The stiff, embroidered folds, whose price is 
human life, rustled down slowly. The Mave- 
ricks keep their colors long and guard them 
very sacredly. 

“Vittoria, Salamanca, Toulouse, Waterloo, 
Moodkee, Ferozshah, and Sobraon — that was 
fought close next door here, against the very 
beggars he wants us to join. Inkerman, the 
Alma, Sebastopol ! What are those little busi- 
nesses compared to the campaigns of General 
Mulcahy? The mut’ny, think o’ that; the 
mut’ny an’ some dirty little matters in Afghan- 
istan, and for that an’ these and those” — Dan 
pointed to the names of glorious battles — 
“that Yankee man with the partin’ in his hair 
comes and says as easy as ‘have a drink’ . . . 
Holy Moses ! there’s the captain !” 

But it was the mess-sergeant who came in 
just as the men clattered out, and found the 
colors uncased. 


THE MAVERICKS 


ill 


From that day dated the mutiny of the 
Mavericks, to the joy of Mulcahy and the 
pride of his mother in New York — the good 
lady who sent the money for the beer. Never, 
as far as words went, was such a mutiny. The 
conspirators, led by Dan Grady and Horse 
Egan poured in daily. They were sound men, 
men to be trusted, and they all wanted blood; 
but first they must have beer. They cursed 
the queen, they mourned over Ireland, they 
suggested hideous plunder of the Indian 
country-side, and then, alas ! some of the 
younger men would go forth and wallow on 
the ground in spasms of unholy laughter. The 
genius of the Irish for conspiracies is remark- 
able. None the less, they would swear no 
oaths but those of their own making, which 
were rare and curious, and they were always 
at pains to impress Mulcahy with the risks 
they ran. Naturally the flood of beer wrought 
demoralization. But Mulcahy confused the 
causes of things, and when a pot-valiant Ma- 
verick smote a servant on the nose or called 
his commanding officer a bald-headed old lard- 
bladder, and even worse names, he fancied that 
rebellion and not liquor was at the bottom of 
the outbreak. Other gentlemen who have con- 
cerned themselves in larger conspiracies have 
made the same error. 


112 


THE MUTINY OF 


The hot season, in which they protested no 
man could rebel, came to an end, and Mulcahy 
suggested a visible return for his teachings. As 
to the actual upshot of the mutiny, he cared 
nothing. It would be enough if the English, 
infatuatedly trusting to the integrity of their 
army, should be startled with news of an Irish 
regiment revolting from political considera- 
tions. His persistent demands would have 
ended, at Dan’s instigation, in a regimental 
belting which in all probability would have 
killed him and cut ofl the supply of beer, had 
not he been sent on special duty some fifty 
miles away from the cantonment to cool his 
heels in a mud fort and dismount obsolete ar- 
tillery. Then the colonel of the Mavericks, 
reading his newspaper diligently and scenting 
frontier trouble from afar, posted to the army 
headquarters and pleaded with the commander- 
in-chief for certain privileges, to be granted 
under certain contingencies; which contingen- 
cies came about only a week later when the an- 
nual little war on the border developed itself 
and the colonel returned to carry the good 
news to the Mavericks. He held the promise 
of the chief for active service, and the men 
must get ready. 

On the evening of the same day, Mulcahy, 


THE MAVERICKS 


113 

an unconsidered corporal — yet great in con- 
spiracy — returned to cantonments, and heard 
sounds of strife and howlings from afar off. 
The mutiny had broken out, and the barracks 
of the Mavericks were one whitewashed pan- 
demonium. A private tearing through the 
barrack square gasped in his ear: “Service! 
Active service! It’s a burnin’ shame.” Oh, 
joy, the Mavericks had risen on the eve of 
battle! They would not — noble and loyal sons 
of Ireland! — serve the queen longer. The 
news would flash through the country-side and 
over to England, and he — Mulcahy — the 
trusted of the Third Three, had brought about 
the crash. The private stood in the middle of 
the square and cursed colonel, regiment, offi- 
cers, and doctor, particularly the doctor, by 
his gods. An orderly of the native cavalry 
regiment clattered through the mob of soldiers. 
He was half lifted, half dragged from his 
horse, beaten on the back with mighty hand- 
claps till his eyes watered, and called all man- 
ner of endearing names. Yes, the Mavericks 
had fraternized with the native troops. Who, 
then, was the agent among the latter that had 
blindly wrought with Mulcahy so well? 

An officer slunk, almost ran, from the mess 
to a barrack. He was mobbed by the infuri- 


THE MUTINY OF 


114 

ated soldiery, who dosed round but did not 
kill him, for he fought his way to shelter, fly- 
ing for his life. Mulcahy could have wept 
with pure joy and thankfulness. The very 
prisoners in the guard-room were shaking the 
bars of their cells and howling like wild beasts, 
and from every barrack poured the booming as 
of a big war-drum. 

Mulcahy hastened to his own barrack. He 
could hardly hear himself speak. Eighty men 
were pounding with fist and heel the tables 
and trestles — eighty men flushed with mutiny, 
stripped to their shirt-sleeves, their knapsacks 
half-packed for the march to the sea, made 
the two-inch boards thunder again as they 
chanted to a tune that Mulcahy knew well, the 
Sacred War Song of the Mavericks : 

“Listen in the north, my boys, there’s trouble on the 
wind ; 

Tramp o’ Cossack’s hoofs in front, grey great-coats 
behind, 

Trouble on the frontier of a most amazin’ kind. 
Trouble on the water o’ the Oxus !” 

Then as a table broke under the furious ac- 
companiment : 

“Hurrah ! hurrah ! it’s north by west we go ; 

Hurrah ! hurrah ! the chance we wanted so ; 

Let ’em hear the chorus from Umballa to Moscow, 
As we go marching to the Kremlin.” 


THE MAVERICKS 


“5 


“Mother of all the saints in bliss and all the 
devils in cinders, where’s my fine new sock 
widout the heel?” howled Horse Egan, ran- 
sacking everybody’s knapsack but his own. He 
was engaged in making up deficiencies of kit 
preparatory to a campaign, and in that em- 
ploy, he steals best who steals last. “Ah, 
Mulcahy, you’re in good time,” he shouted. 
“We’ve got the route, and we’re off on Thurs- 
day for a picnic wid the Lancers next door.” 

An ambulance orderly appeared with a huge 
basket full of lint rolls, provided by the fore- 
thought of the queen, for such as might need 
them later on. Horse Egan unrolled his ban- 
dage and flicked it under Mulcahy’s nose 
chanting : 

“‘Sheep’s skin an’ bees’-wax, thunder, pitch and plas- 
ter; 

The more you try to pull it off, the more it sticks the 
faster. 

As I was goin’ to New Orleans’ — 

You know the rest of it, my Irish- American 
Jew boy. By gad, ye have to fight for the 
queen in the inside av a fortnight, my darlin.” 

A roar of laughter interrupted. Mulcahy 
looked vacantly down the room. Bid a boy 
defy his father when the pantomime-cab is at 
the door, or a girl develop a will of her own 


n6 


THE MUTINY OF 


when her mother is putting the last touches 
to the first ball-dress, but do not ask an Irish 
regiment to embark upon mutiny on the eve 
of a campaign; when it has fraternized with 
the native regiment that accompanies it, 
and driven its officers into retirement with ten 
thousand clamourous questions, and the pris- 
oners dance for joy, and the sick men stand 
in the open, calling down all known diseases 
on the head of the doctor who has certified 
that they are “medically unfit for active ser- 
vice.” And even the Mavericks might have 
been mistaken for mutineers by one so un- 
versed in their natures as Mulcahy. At dawn 
a girl’s school might have learned deportment 
from them. They knew that their colonel’s 
hand had closed, and that he who broke that 
iron discipline would not go to the front. 
Nothing in the world will persuade one of our 
soldiers when he is ordered to the north on the 
smallest of affairs, that he is not immediately 
going gloriously to slay Cossacks and cook his 
kettles in the palace of the czar. A few of the 
younger men mourned for Mulcahy’s beer, be- 
cause the campaign was to be conducted on 
strict temperance principles, but, as Dan and 
Horse Egan said sternly : “We’ve got the beer- 
man with us; he shall drink now on his own 
hook.” 


THE MAVERICKS 


ii 7 

Mulcahy had not taken into account the pos- 
sibility of being sent on active service. He 
had made up his mind that he would not go 
under any circumstances; but fortune was 
against him. 

“Sick — you?” said the doctor, who had 
served an unholy apprenticeship to his trade in 
Tralee poorhouses. “You’re only homesick, 
and what you call varicose veins come from 
overeating. A little gentle exercise will cure 
that.” And later: “Mulcahy, my man, every- 
body is allowed to apply for a sick certificate 
once. If he tries it twice, we call him by 
an ugly name. Go back to your duty, and let’s 
hear no more of your diseases.” 

I am ashamed to say that Horse Egan en- 
joyed the study of Mulcahy’s soul in those 
days, and Dan took an equal interest. To- 
gether they would communicate to their cor- 
poral all the dark lore of death that is the por- 
tion of those who have seen men die. Egan 
had the larger experience, but Dan the finer 
imagination. Mulcahy shivered when the for- 
mer spoke of the knife as an intimate acquaint- 
ance, or the latter dwelt with loving particu- 
larity on the fate of those who, wounded and 
helpless, had been overlooked by the ambul- 
ances, and had fallen into the hands of the 
Afghan women-folk, 


n8 


THE MUTINY OF 


Mulcahy knew that the mutiny, for the pre- 
sent at least, was dead. Knew, too, that a 
change had come over Dan’s usually respectful 
attitude toward him, and Horse Egan’s laugh- 
ter and frequent allusions to abortive conspir- 
acies emphasized all that the conspirator had 
guessed. The horrible fascination of the 
death-stories, however, made him seek their 
society. He learned much more than he had 
bargained for; and in this manner. It was 
on the last night before the regiment entrained 
to the front. The barracks were stripped of 
everything movable, and the men were too ex- 
cited to sleep. The bare walls gave out a 
heavy hospital smell of chloride of lime — a 
stench that depresses the soul. 

“And what,” said Mulcahy, in an awe- 
stricken whisper, after some conversation on 
the eternal subject, “are you going to do to me, 
Dan?” This might have been the language 
of an able conspirator conciliating a weak 
spirit. 

“You’ll see,” said Dan, grimly, turning over 
in his cot, “or I rather shud say you’ll not 
see.” 

This was hardly the language of a weak 
spirit. Mulcahy shook under the bedclothes. 

“Be easy with him,” put in Egan from the 


THE MAVERICKS 


119 

next cot. “He has got his chanst o’ goin’ 
clean. Listen, Mulcahy : all we want is for the 
good sake of the regiment that you take your 
death standing up, as a man shud. There be 
heaps an’ heaps of enemy — splenshus heaps. 
Go there an’ do all you can and die decent. 
You’ll die with a good name there. ’Tis not 
a hard thing considerin’.” 

Again Mulcahy shivered. 

“And how could a man wish to die better 
than fightin’?” added Dan, consolingly. 

“And if I won’t?” said the corporal in a 
dry whisper. 

“There’ll be a dale of smoke,” returned 
Dan, sitting up and ticking off the situation 
on his fingers, “sure to be, an’ the noise of the 
firin’ ’ll be tremenjus, an’ we’ll be running 
about up and down, the regiment will. But 
we, Horse and I — we’ll stay by you, Mulcahy, 
and never let you go. Maybe there’ll be an ac- 
cident.” 

“It’s playing it low on me. Let me go. 
For pity’s sake, let me go! I never did you 
harm, and — and I stood you as much beer as 
I could. Oh, don’t be hard on me, Dan ! You 
are> — you were in it, too. You won’t kill me 
up there, will you?” 

“I’m not thinkin’ of the treason; though 


120 


THE MUTINY OF 


you shud be glad any honest boys drank with 
you. It’s for the regiment We can’t have 
the shame o’ you bringin’ shame on us. You 
went to the doctor quiet as a sick cat to get 
and stay behind an’ live with the women at 
the depot — you that wanted us to run to the 
sea in wolf-packs like the rebels none of your 
black blood dared to be! But we knew about 
your goin’ to the doctor, for he told it in mess, 
and it’s all over the regiment. Bein’ as we are 
your best friends, we didn’t allow any one to 
molest you yet. We will see to you ourselves. 
Fight which you will — us or the enemy — 
you’ll never lie in that cot again, and there’s 
more glory and maybe less kicks from fight- 
ing the enemy. That’s fair speakin’.” 

“And he told us by word of mouth to go 
and join with the niggers — you’ve forgotten 
that, Dan,” said Horse Egan, to justify sen- 
tence. 

“What’s the use plaguin’ the man? One 
shot pays for all. Sleep ye sound, Mulcahy. 
But you onderstand, do ye not?” 

Mulcahy for some weeks understood very 
little of anything at all save that ever at his 
elbow, in camp, or at parade, stood two big 
men with soft voices adjuring him to commit 
hari kari lest a worse thing should happen — 


THE MAVERICKS 


121 


to die for the honor of the regiment in de- 
cency among the nearest knives. But Mul- 
cahy dreaded death. He remembered certain 
things that priests had said in his infancy, 
and his mother — not the one at New York — 
starting from her sleep with shrieks to pray 
for a husband’s soul in torment. It is well 
to be of a cultured intelligence, but in time of 
trouble the weak human mind returns to the 
creed it sucked in at the breast, and if that 
creed be not a pretty one, trouble follows. 
Also, the death he would have to face would 
be physically painful. Most conspirators have 
large imaginations. Mulcahy could see him- 
self, as he lay on the earth in the night, dying 
by various causes. They were all horrible ; the 
mother in New York was very far away, and 
the regiment, the engine that, once you fall in 
its grip, moves you forward whether you will 
or won’t, was daily coming closer to the 
enemy ! 

* * * 5jC * * 

They were brought to the field of Marzun- 
Katai, and with the Black Boneens to aid, they 
fought a fight that has never been set down 
in the newspapers. In response, many be- 
lieve, to the fervent prayers of Father Dennis, 
the enemy not only elected to fight in the open, 


122 


THE MUTINY OF 


but made a beautiful fight, as many weeping 
Irish mothers knew later. They gathered be- 
hind walls or flickered across the open in 
shouting masses, and were pot-valiant in ar- 
tillery. It was expedient to hold a large re- 
serve and wait for the psychological moment 
that was being prepared by the shrieking 
shrapnel. Therefore the Mavericks lay down 
in open order on the brow of a hill to watch 
the play till their call should come. Father 
Dennis, whose place was in the rear, to 
smoothe the trouble of the wounded, had nat- 
urally managed to make his way to the fore- 
most of his boys, and lay, like a black porpoise, 
at length on the grass. To him crawled Mul- 
cahy, ashen-grey, demanding absolution. 

“Wait till you’re shot,” said Father Dennis, 
sweetly. “There’s a time for everything.” 

Dan Grady chuckled as he blew for the fif- 
tieth time into the breech of his speckless rifle. 
Mulcahy groaned and buried his head in his 
arms till a stray shot spoke like a snipe im- 
mediately above his head, and a general heave 
and tremor rippled the line. Other shots fol- 
lowed, and a few took effect, as a shriek or a 
grunt attested. The officers, who had been 
lying down with the men, rose and began to 
walk steadily up and down the front of their 
companies. 


THE MAVERICKS 


123 


This maneuvre, executed not for publica- 
tion, but as a guarantee of good faith, to 
soothe men, demands nerve. You must not 
hurry, you must not look nervous, though you 
know that you are a mark for every rifle 
within extreme range; and, above all, if you 
are smitten you must make as little noise as 
possible and roll inward through the files. It 
is at this hour, when the breeze brings the 
first salt whiff of the powder to noses rather 
cold at the tips, and the eye can quietly take in 
the appearance of each red casualty, that the 
strain on the nerves is strongest. Scotch reg- 
iments can endure for half a day, and abate 
no whit of their zeal at the end ; English regi- 
ments sometimes sulk under punishment, 
while the Irish, like the French, are apt to run 
forward by ones and twos, which is just as 
bad as running back. The truly wise com- 
mandment of highly strung troops allows 
them in seasons of waiting to hear the sound 
of their own voices uplifted in song. There is 
a legend of an English regiment that lay by 
its arms under fire chanting “Sam Hall,” to 
the horror of its newly appointed and pious 
colonel. The Black Boneens, who were suf- 
fering more than the Mavericks, on a hill half 


124 


THE MUTINY OF 


a mile away, began presently to explain to all 
who cared to listen : 

“We’ll sound the jubilee, from the centre to the sea, 
And Ireland shall be free, says the Shan- van- Voght.” 

“Sing, boys,” said Father Dennis, softly. 
“It looks as if we cared for their Afghan 
peas.” 

Dan Grady raised himself to his knees and 
opened his mouth in a song imparted to him, 
as to most of his comrades, in the strictest 
confidence by Mulcahy — that Mulcahy then 
lying limp and fainting on the grass, the chill 
fear of death upon him. 

Company after company caught up the 
words which, the I. A. A. say, are to herald 
the general rising of Erin, and to breathe 
which, except to those duly appointed to hear, 
is death. Wherefore they are printed in this 
place : 

“The Saxon in heaven’s just balance is weighed. 

His doom, like Belshazzar’s, in death has been cast, 
And the hand of the ’venger shall never be stayed 

Till his race, faith, and speech are a dream of the 
past.” 

They were heart-filling lines, and they ran 
with a swirl ; the I. A. A. are better served 
by pens than their petards. Dan clapped Mul- 


THE MAVERICKS 


125 

cahy merrily on the back, asking him to sing 
up. The officers lay down again. There was 
no need to walk any more. Their men were 
soothing themselves thunderously, thus : 

“St. Mary in heaven has written the vow 

That the land shall not rest till the heretic blood, 

From the babe at the breast to the hand at the plow, 
Has rolled to the ocean like Shannon in flood!” 

'Til speak to you after all’s over,” said Fa- 
ther Dennis, authoritatively, in Dan’s ear. 
"What’s the use of confessing to me when you 
do this foolishness? Dan, you’ve been play- 
ing with fire! I’ll lay you more penance in a 
week than” — 

"Come along to purgatory with us, father, 
dear. The Boneens are on the move; they’ll 
let us go now!” 

The regiment rose to the blast of the bugle 
as one man; but one man there was who rose 
more swiftly than all the others, for half an 
inch of bayonet was in the fleshy part of his 
leg. 

"You’ve got to do it,” said Dan, grimly. 
"Do it decent, anyhow;” and the roar of the 
rush drowned his words as the rear companies 
thrust forward the first, still singing as they 
swung down the slope: 

“From the child at the breast to the hand at the plow 

Has rolled to the ocean like Shannon in flood 1” 


126 


THE MUTINY OF 


They should have sung it in the face of 
England, not of the Afghans, whom it im- 
pressed as much as did the wild Irish yell. 

“They came down singing,” said the unoffi- 
cial report of the enemy, borne from village to 
village next day. “They continued to sing, 
and it was written that our men could not 
abide when they came. It is believed that 
there was magic in the aforesaid song.” 

Dan and Horse Egan kept themselves in the 
neighborhood of Mulcahy. Twice the man 
would have bolted back in the confusion. 
Twice he was heaved like a half-drowned kit- 
ten into the unpaintable inferno of a hotly 
contested charge. 

At the end, the panic excess of his fear 
roved him into madness beyond all human 
courage. His eyes staring at nothing, his 
mouth open and frothing, and breathing as 
one in a cold bath, he went forward demented, 
while Dan toiled after him. The charge was 
checked at a high mud wall. It was Mulcahy 
that scrambled up tooth and nail and heaved 
down among the bayonets the amazed Afghan 
who barred his way. It was Mulcahy, keeping 
to the straight line of the rabid dog, led a col- 
lection of ardent souls at a newly unmasked 
battery, and flung himself on the muzzle of a 


THE MAVERICKS 


127 


gun as his companions danced among the 
gunners. It was Mulcahy who ran wildly 
on from that batery into the open plain where 
the enemy were retiring in sullen groups. His 
hands were empty, he had lost helmet and 
belt, and he was bleeding from a wound in the 
neck. Dan and Horse Egan, panting and dis- 
tressed, had thrown themselves down on the 
ground by the captured guns, when they no- 
ticed Mulcahy’s flight. 

“Mad,” said Horse Egan, critically. “Mad 
with fear! He’s going straight to his death, 
an’ shouting’s no use.” 

“Let him go. Watch now! If we fire we’ll 
hit him maybe.” 

The last of a hurrying crowd of Afghans 
turned at the noise of shod feet behind him, 
and shifted his knife ready to hand. This, he 
saw, was no time to take prisoners. Mulcahy 
ran on, sobbing, and the straight-held blade 
went home through the defenceless breast, and 
the body pitched forward almost before a shot 
from Dan’s rifle brought down the slayer and 
still further hurried the Afghan retreat. The 
two Irishmen went out to bring in their dead. 

“He was given the point, and that was an 
easy death,” said Horse Egan, viewing the 
corpse. “But would you ha’ shot him, 
Danny, if he had lived ?” 


128 


THE MUTINY OF 


“He didn’t live, so there’s no sayin’. But I 
doubt I wud have, bekase of the fun he gave 
us — let alone the beer. Hike up his legs, 
Horse, and we’ll bring him in. Perhaps ’tis 
better this way.” 

They bore the poor limp body to the mass of 
the regiment, lolling open-mouthed on their 
rifles; and there was a general snigger when 
one of the younger subalterns said : “That was 
a good man!” 

“Phew!” said Horse Egan, when a burial 
party had taken over the burden. “I’m pow- 
erful dhry, and this reminds me, there’ll be 
no more beer at all.” 

“Fwhy not?” said Dan, with a twinkle in 
his eye as he stretched himself for rest. “Are 
we not conspirin’ all we can, an’ while we con- 
spire are we not entitled to free dhrinks ? Sure 
his ould mother in New York would not let 
her son’s comrades perish of drouth — if she 
can be reached at the end of a letter.” 

“You’re a janius,” said Horse Egan. “O’ 
coorse she will not. I wish this crool war was 
over, an’ we’d get back to canteen. Faith, the 
commander-in-chief ought to be hanged on 
his own little sword-belt for makin’ us work 
on wather.” 

The Mavericks were generally of Horse 


THE MAVERICKS 


129 


Egan’s opinion. So they made haste to get 
their work done as soon as possible, and their 
industry was rewarded by unexpected peace. 
“We can fight the sons of Adam,” said the 
tribesmen, “but we cannot fight the sons of 
Eblis, and this regiment never stays still in 
one place. Let us therefore come in.” They 
came in, and “this regiment” withdrew to 
conspire under the leadership of Dan Grady. 

Excellent as a subordinate, Dan failed alto- 
gether as a chief-in-command — possibly be- 
cause he was too much swayed by the advice of 
the only man in the regiment who could per- 
petrate more than one kind of handwriting. 
The same mail that bore to Mulcahy’s mother 
in New York a letter from the colonel, telling 
her how valiantly her son had fought for the 
queen, and how assuredly he would have been 
recommended for the Victoria Cross had he 
survived, carried a communication signed, I 
grieve to say, by that same colonel and all the 
officers of the regiment, explaining their will- 
ingness to do “anything which is contrary to 
the regulations and all kinds of revolutions” 
if only a little money could be forwarded to 
cover incidental expenses. Daniel Grady, 
Esquire, would receive funds, vice Mulcahy, 
who “was unwell at this present time of writ- 
ing.” 


130 


THE MUTINY OF 


Both letters were forwarded from New 
York to Tahema Street, San Francisco, with 
marginal comments as brief as they were bit- 
ter. The Third Three read and looked at each 
other. Then the Second Conspirator — he who 
believed in “ joining hands with the practical 
branches” — began to laugh, and on recovering 
his gravity, said: “Gentlemen, I consider this 
will be a lesson to us. We’re left again. Those 
cursed Irish have let us down. I knew they 
would, but” — here he laughed afresh — “I’d 
give considerable to know what was at the 
back of it all.” 

His curiosity would have been satisfied had 
he seen Dan Grady, discredited regimental 
conspirator, trying to explain to his thirsty 
comrades in India the non-arrival of funds 
from New York. 


AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 







AT THE END OF THE PASSAGE 


F OUR men, theoretically entitled to “life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” sat 
at a table playing whist. The thermometer 
marked — for them — one hundred and one de- 
grees of heat. The room was darkened till it 
was only just possible to distinguish the pipes 
of the cards and the very white faces of the 
players. A tattered, rotten punkah of white- 
washed calico was puddling the hot air and 
whining dolefully at each stroke. Outside lay 
gloom of a November day in London. There 
was neither sky, sun, nor horizon- — nothing 
but a brown-purple haze of heat. It was as 
though the earth were dying of apoplexy. 

From time to time clouds of tawny dust rose 
from the ground without wind or warning, 
flung themselves table-cloth-wise among the 
tops of the parched trees, and came down 
again. Then a whirling dust-devil would scut- 
ter across the plain for a couple of miles, break 
and fall outward, though there was nothing to 
check its flight save a long low line of piled 
railway-sleepers white with the dust, a cluster 
of huts made of mud, condemned rails and 
133 


134 


AT THE END OF 


canvas, and the one squat four-roomed bunga- 
low that belonged to the assistant engineer in 
charge of a section of the Gandhari State line 
then under construction. 

The four men, stripped to the thinnest of 
sleeping-suits, played whist crossly, with 
wranglings as to leads and returns. It was not 
the best kind of whist, but they had taken some 
trouble to arrive at it. Mottram, of the India 
Survey, had ridden thirty and railed one hun- 
dred miles from his lonely post in the desert 
since the previous night ; Lowndes, of the Civil 
Service, on special duty in the political depart- 
ment, had come as far to escape for an instant 
the miserable intrigues of an impoverished na- 
tive state whose king alternately fawned and 
blustered for more money from the pitiful 
revenues contributed by hard-wrung peasants 
and despairing camel-breeders; Spurstow, the 
doctor of the line, had left a cholera-stricken 
camp of coolies to look after itself for forty- 
eight hours while he associated with white men 
once more. Hummil, the assistant engineer, 
was the host. He stood fast, and received his 
friends thus every Sunday if they could come 
in. When one of them failed to appear, he 
would send a telegram to his last address, in 
order that he might know whether the de- 


THE PASSAGE 


135 


faulter was dead or alive. There be very many 
places in the East where it is not good or kind 
to let your acquaintances drop out of sight 
even for one short week. 

The players were not conscious of any spe- 
cial regard for each other. They squabbled 
whenever they met; but they ardently desired 
to meet, as men without water desire to drink. 
They were lonely folk who understood the 
dread meaning of loneliness. They were all 
under thirty years of age — which is too soon 
for any man to possess that knowledge. 

“Pilsener,” said Spurstow, after the second 
rubber, mopping his forehead. 

“Beer's out, Fm sorry to say, and there’s 
hardly enough soda-water for to-night,” said 
Hummil. 

“What filthy bad management!” snarled 
Spurstow. 

“Can’t help it. I’ve written and wired ; but 
the trains don’t come through regularly yet. 
Last week the ice ran out — as Lowndes 
knows.” 

“Glad I didn’t come. I could ha’ sent you 
some if I had known, though. Phew! it’s too 
hot to go on playing bumblepuppy.” 

This was a savage growl at Lowndes, who 
only laughed. He was a hardened offender. 


136 


AT THE END OF 


Mottram rose from the table and looked out 
of a chink in the shutters. 

“What a sweet day!” said he. 

The company yawned unanimously and be- 
took themselves to an aimless investigation of 
all Hummil’s possessions — guns, tattered 
novels, saddlery, spurs, and the like. They 
had fingered them a score of times before, but 
there was really nothing else to do. 

“Got anything fresh?” said Lowndes. 

“Last week’s ‘Gazette of India,’ and a cut- 
ting from a home paper. My father sent it 
out. It’s rather amusing.” 

“One of those vestrymen that call ’emselves 
M. P.’s again, is it?” said Spurstow, who read 
his newspapers when he could get them. 

“Yes. Listen to this. It’s to your address, 
Lowndes. The man was making a speech to 
his constituents, and he piled it on. Here’s a 
sample: ‘And I assert unhesitatingly that the 
Civil Service in India is to preserve — the pet 
preserve — of the aristocracy of England. What 
does the democracy — what do the masses — get 
from that country, which we have step by step 
fraudulently annexed? I answer, nothing 
whatever. It is farmed, with a single eye to 
their own interests, by the scions of the aris- 
tocracy. They take good care to maintain 


THE PASSAGE 


137 


their lavish scale of incomes, to avoid or stifle 
any inquiries into the nature and conduct of 
their administration, while they themselves 
force the unhappy peasant to pay with the 
sweat of his brow for all the luxuries in which 
they are lapped/ ” Hummil waved the cut- 
ting above his head. “ ’Ear ! ’ear !” said his 
audience. 

Then Lowndes, meditatively : “I’d give — I’d 
give three months’ pay to have that gentleman 
spend one month with me and see how the free 
and independent native prince works things. 
Old Timbersides” — this was his flippant title 
for an honored and decorated prince — “has 
been wearing my life out this week past for 
money. By Jove! his latest performance was 
to send me one of his women as a bribe!” 

“Good for you. Did you accept it?” said 
Mottram. 

“No. I rather wish I had, now. She was a 
pretty little person, and she yarned away to me 
about the horrible destitution among the king’s 
women-folk. The darlings haven’t had any 
new clothes for nearly a month, and the old 
man wants to buy a new drag from Calcutta — 
solid silver railings and silver lamps, and 
trifles of that kind. I’ve tried to make him un- 
derstand that he has played the deuce with the 


AT THE END OF 


138 

revenues for the last twenty years, and must 
go slow. He can’t see it.” 

“But he has the ancestral treasure-vault to 
draw on. There must be three millions at least 
in jewels and coin under his palace,” said 
Hummil. 

“Catch a native king disturbing the family 
treasure! The priests forbid it, except as the 
last resort. Old Timbersides has added some- 
thing like a quarter of a million to the deposit 
in his reign.” 

“Where the mischief does it all come 
from?” said Mottram. 

“The country. The state of the people is 
enough to make you sick. I’ve known the tax- 
men wait by a milch-camel till the foal was 
born, and then hurry off the mother for ar- 
rears. And what can I do? I can’t get the 
court clerks to give me any accounts; I can’t 
raise anything more than a fat smile from the 
commander-in-chief when I find out the 
troops are three months in arrears; and old 
Timbersides begins to weep when I speak to 
him. He has taken to the king’s peg heavily 
— liquor brandy for whisky and Heidsieck for 
soda-water.” 

“That’s what the Rao of Jubela took to. 
Even a native can’t last long at that,” said 
Spurstow. “He’ll go out.” 


THE PASSAGE 


139 


“And a good thing, too. Then I suppose 
we’ll have a council of regency, and a tutor for 
the young prince, and hand him back his king- 
dom with ten years’ accumulations.” 

“Whereupon that young prince, having been 
taught all the vices of the English, will play 
ducks and drakes with the money, and undo 
ten years’ work in eighteen months. I’ve seen 
that business before,” said Spurstow. “I should 
tackle the king with a light hand, if I were 
you, Lowndes. They’ll hate you quite enough 
under any circumstances.” 

“That’s all very well. The man who looks 
on can talk about the light hand ; but you can’t 
clean a pig-sty with a pen dipped in rosewarer. 
I know my risks; but nothing has happened 
yet. My servant’s an old Pathan, and he cooks 
for me. They are hardly likely to bribe him, 
and I don’t accept food from my true friends, 
as they call themselves. Oh, but it’s weary 
work! I’d sooner be with you, Spurstow. 
There’s shooting near your camp.” 

“Would you? I don’t think it. About fif- 
teen deaths a day don’t incite a man to shoot 
anything but himself. And the worst of it is 
that the poor devils look at you as though you 
ought to save them. Lord knows, I’ve tried 
everything. My last attempt was empirical, 


140 


AT THE END OF 


but it pulled an old man through. He was 
brought to me apparently past hope, and I 
gave him gin and Worcester sauce with cay- 
enne. It cured him; but I don’t recommend 
it.” 

“How do the cases run generally?” said 
Hummil. 

“Very simply indeed. Chlorodyne, opium 
pill, chlorodyne, collapse, nitre, bricks to the 
feet, and then — the burning-ghat. The last 
seems to be the only thing that stops the trou- 
ble. It’s black cholera, you know. Poor dev- 
ils ! But, what I will say, little Bunsee Lai, my 
apothecary, works like a demon. I’ve recom- 
mended him for promotion if he comes 
through it all alive.” 

“And what are your chances, old man?” 
said Mottram. 

“Don’t know ; don’t care much ; but I’ve sent 
the letter in. What are you doing with your- 
self generally?” 

“Sitting under a table in the tent and spit- 
ting on the sextant to keep it cool,” said the 
man of the survey. “Washing my eyes to 
avoid ophthalmia, which I shall certainly get, 
and trying to make a sub-surveyor understand 
that an error of five degrees in an angle isn’t 
quite so small as it looks. I’m altogether alone, 


THE PASSAGE 


141 

y’ know, and shall be till the end of the hot 
weather.” 

“Hummil’s the lucky man,” said Lowndes, 
flinging himself into a long chair. “He has an 
actual roof — torn as to the ceiling-cloth, but 
still a roof — over his head. He sees one train 
daily. He can get beer and soda-water, and 
ice it when God is good. He has books, pic- 
tures” — they were torn from the “Graphic” — 
“and the society of the excellent sub-contractor 
Jevins, besides the pleasure of receiving us 
weekly.” 

Hummil smiled grimly. “Yes, I’m the lucky 
man, I suppose. Jevins is luckier.” 

“How? Not”— 

“Yes. Went out. Last Monday.” 

“Ap se?” said Spurstow, quickly, hinting 
the suspicion that was in everybody’s mind. 
There was no cholera near Hummil’s section. 
Even fever gives a man at least a week’s 
grace, and sudden death generally implied self- 
slaughter. 

“I judge no man this weather,” said Hum- 
mil. “He had a touch of the sun, I fancy; for 
last week, after you fellows had left, he came 
into the veranda and told me that he was go- 
ing home to see his wife, in Market Street, 
Liverpool, that evening. I got the apothecary 


142 


AT THE END OF 


in to look at him, and we tried to make him lie 
down. After an hour or two he rubbed his 
eyes and said he believed he had had a fit — 
hoped he hadn’t said anything rude. Jevins 
had a great idea of bettering himself socially. 
He was very like Chucks in his language.” 
“Well?” 

‘Then he went to his own bungalow and be- 
gan cleaning a rifle. He told the servant that 
he was going after buck in the morning. Nat- 
urally he fumbled with the trigger, and shot 
himself through the head accidentally. The 
apothecary sent in a report to my chief, and 
Jevins is buried somewhere out there. I’d 
have wired to you, Spurstow, if you could have 
done anything.” 

“You’re a queer chap,” said Mottram. “If 
you killed the man yourself you couldn’t have 
been more quiet about the business.” 

“Good Lord! what does it matter?” said 
Hummil, calmly. “I’ve got to do a lot of his 
overseeing work in addition to my own. I’m 
the only person that suffers. Jevins is out of 
it- — by pure accident, of course, but out of it. 
The apothecary was going to write a long 
screed on suicide. Trust a babu to drivel when 
he gets the chance.” 

“Why didn’t you let it go in as suicide?” 
said Lowndes, 


THE PASSAGE 


143 


“No direct proof. A man hasn’t many priv- 
ileges in this country, but he might at least be 
allowed to mishandle his own rifle. Besides, 
some day I may need a man to smother up an 
accident to myself. Live and let live. Die and 
let die.” 

“You take a pill,” said Spurstow, who had 
been watching Hummil’s white face narrowly. 
“Take a pill, and don’t be an ass. That sort of 
talk is skittles. Anyhow, suicide is shirking 
your work. If I was a Job ten times over, I 
should be so interested in what was going to 
happen next that I’d stay on and watch.” 

“Ah ! I’ve lost that curiosity,” said Hummil. 

“Liver out of order?” said Lowndes, feel- 
ingly. 

“No. Can’t sleep. That’s worse.” 

“By Jove, it is!” said Mottram. I’m that 
way every now and then, and the fit has to 
wear itself out. What do you take for it?” 

“Nothing. What’s the use? I haven’t had 
ten minutes’ sleep since Friday morning.” 

“Poor chap ! Spurstow, you ought to attend 
to this,” said Mottram. “Now you mention it, 
your eyes are rather gummy and swollen.” 

Spurstow, still watching Hummil, laughed 
lightly. “I’ll patch him up later on. Is it too 
hot, do you think, to go for a ride ?” 


144 


AT THE END OF 


“Where to?” said Lowndes, wearily. “We 
shall have to go away at eight, and there’ll be 
riding enough for us then. I hate a horse, 
when I have to use him as a necessity. Oh, 
heavens! what is there to do? 7 ’ 

“Begin whist again, at chick points” (a 
“chick” is supposed to be eight shillings), “and 
a gold mohur on the rub,” said Spurstow, 
promptly. 

“Poker. A month’s pay all round for the 
pool — no limit — and fifty-rupee raises. Some- 
body would be broken before we got up,” said 
Lowndes. 

“Can’t say that it would give me any pleas- 
ure to break any man in this company,” said 
Mottram. “There isn’t enough excitement in 
it, and it’s foolish.” He crossed over to the 
worn and battered little camp piano — wreck- 
age of a married household that had once held 
the bungalow — and opened the case. 

“It’s used up long ago,” said Hummil. “The 
servants have picked it to pieces.” 

The piano was indeed hopelessly out of or- 
der, but Mottram managed to bring the rebel- 
lious notes into a sort of agreement, and there 
rose from the ragged key-board something 
that might once have been the ghost of a pop- 
ular music-hall song. The men in the long 


THE PASSAGE 


*45 

chairs turned with evident interest as Mot- 
tram banged the more lustily. 

“That’s good!” said Lowndes. “By Jove! 
the last time I heard that song was in ’79, or 
thereabouts, just before I came out.” 

“Ah!” said Spurstow, with pride, “I was 
home in ’80.” And he mentioned a song of 
the streets popular at that date. 

Mottram executed it indifferently well. 
Lowndes criticised, and volunteered emenda- 
tions. Mottram dashed into another ditty, not 
of the music-hall character, and made as if to 
rise. 

“Sit down,” said Hummil. “I didn’t know 
that you had any music in your composition. 
Go on playing until you can’t think of any- 
thing more. I’ll have that piano tuned up be- 
fore you come again. Play somthing festive.” 

Very simple indeed were the tunes to which 
Mottram’s art and the limitations of the piano 
could give effect, but the men listened with 
pleasure, and in the pauses talked all together 
of what they had seen or heard when they 
were last at home. A dense dust-storm 
sprung up outside and swept roaring over the 
house, enveloping it in the choking darkness of 
midnight, but Mottram continued unheeding, 
and the crazy tinkle reached the ears of the lis- 


146 


AT THE END OF 


teriers above the flapping of the tattered ceil- 
ing-cloth. 

In the silence after the storm he glided from 
the more directly personal songs of Scotland, 
half humming them as he played, into the 
“Evening Hymn.” 

“Sunday,” said he, nodding his head. 

“Go on. Don’t apologize for it,” said Spur- 
stow. 

Hummil laughed long and riotously. “Play 
it, by all means. You’re full of surprises to- 
day. I didn’t know you had such a gift of fin- 
ished sarcasm. How does that thing go?” 

Mottram took up the tune. 

“Too slow by half. You miss the note of 
gratitude,” said Hummil. “It ought to go to 
the 'Grasshopper’s Polka’ — this way.” And 
he chanted, prestissimo: 

“ ‘Glory to Thee, my God, this night, 

For all the blessings of the light.’ 

That shows we really feel our blessings. How 
does it go on ? — 

“‘If in the night I sleepless lie, 

My soul with sacred thoughts supply; 

May no ill dreams disturb my rest,’ — 

Quicker, Mottram! — 

“ ‘Or powers of darkness me molest !’ ” 


THE PASSAGE 


147 


“Bah ! what an old hypocrite you are.” 

“Don’t be an ass,” said Lowndes. “You are 
at full liberty to make fun of anything else you 
like, but leave that hymn alone. It’s associated 
in my mind with the most sacred recollec- 
tions” — 

“Summer evenings in the country — stained- 
glass window — light going out, and you and 
she jamming your heads together over one 
hymn-book,” said Mottram. 

“Yes, and a fat old cockshafer hitting you in 
the eye when you walked home. Smell of hay, 
and a moon as big as a band-box siting on the 
top of a haycock; bats — roses — milk and 
midges,” said Lowndes. 

“Also mothers. I can just recollect my 
mother singing me to sleep with that when I 
was a little chap,” said Spurstow. 

The darkness had fallen on the room. They 
could hear Hummil squirming in his chair. 

“Consequently,” said he, testily, “you sing 
it when you are seven fathoms deep in hell! 
It’s an insult to the intelligence of the Deity to 
pretend we’re anything but tortured rebels.” 

“Take two pills,” said Spurstow: “that’s 
tortured liver.” 

“The usually placid Hummil is in a vile bad 
temper. I’m sorry for the coolies to-mor- 


148 


AT THE END OF 


row,” said Lowndes, as the servants brought 
in the lights and prepared the table for dinner. 

As they were settling into their places about 
the miserable goat-chops, the curried eggs, and 
the smoked tapioca pudding, Spurstow took 
occasion to whisper to Mottram: “Well done, 
David!” 

“Look after Saul, then,” was the reply. 

“What are you two whispering about?” 
said Hummil, suspiciously. 

“Only saying that you are a d d poor 

host. This fowl can’t be cut,” returned Spur- 
stow, with a sweet smile. “Call this a din- 
ner ?” 

“I can’t help it. You don’t expect a ban- 
quet, do you?” 

Throughout that meal Hummil contrived 
laboriously to insult directly and pointedly all 
his guests in succession, and at each insult 
Spurstow kicked the aggrieved person under 
the table; but he dared not exchange a glance 
of intelligence with either of them. Hummil’s 
face was white and pinched, while his eyes 
were unnaturally large. No man dreamed for 
a moment of resenting his savage personalities, 
but as soon as the meal was over they made 
haste to get away. 

“Don’t go. You’re just getting amusing, 


THE PASSAGE 


149 


you fellows. I hope I haven’t said anything 
that annoyed you. You’re such touchy dev- 
ils.” Then, changing the note into one of al- 
most abject entreaty: “I say, you surely aren’t 
going?” 

“Where I dines, I sleeps, in the language of 
the blessed Jorrocks,” said Spurstow. “I want 
to have a look at your coolies to-morrow, if 
you don’t mind. You can give me a place to 
lie down in, I suppose ?” 

The others pleaded the urgency of their sev- 
eral employs next day, and, saddling up, de- 
parted together, Hummil begging them to 
come next Sunday. As they jogged off to- 
gether, Lowndes unbosomed himself to Mot- 
tram : “ . . . And I never felt so like kick- 
ing a man at his own table in my life. Said I 
cheated at whist, and reminded me I was in 
debt! Told you you were as good as a liar to 
your face! You aren’t half indignant enough 
over it.” 

“Not I,” said Mottram. “Poor devil! Did 
you ever know old Hummy behave like that 
before? Did you ever know him go within 
a hundred miles of it?” 

“That’s no excuse. Spurstow was hacking 
my shin all the time, so I kept a hand on my- 
self. Else I should have” — 


AT THE END OF 


150 

“No, you wouldn’t. You’d have done as 
Hummy did about Jevins: judge no man this 
weather. By Jove! the buckle of my bridle is 
hot in my hand ! Trot out a bit, and mind the 
rat-holes.” 

Ten minutes’ trotting jerked out of Lowndes 
one very sage remark when he pulled up, 
sweating from every pore : 

“Good thing Spurstow’s with him to-night.” 

“Ye-es. Good man, Spurstow. Our roads 
turn here. See you again next Sunday, if the 
sun doesn’t bowl me over.” 

“S’pose so, unless old Timbersides’ finance 
minister manages to dress some of my food. 
Good-night, and — God bless you!” 

“What’s wrong now?” 

“Oh, nothing.” Lowndes gathered up his 
whip, and, as he flicked Mottram’s mare on the 
flank, added: “You’re a good little chap — 
that’s all.” And the mare bolted half a mile 
across the sand on the word. 

In the assistant engineer’s bungalow Spur- 
stow and Hummil smoked the pipe of silence 
together, each narrowly watching the other. 
The capacity of a bachelor’s establishment is 
as elastic as its arrangements are simple. A 
servant cleared away the dining-room table, 
brought in a couple of rude native bedsteads 


THE PASSAGE 


151 

made of tape strung on a light wood frame, 
flung a square of cool Calcutta matting over 
each, set them side by side, pinned two towels 
to the punkah so that their fringes should just 
sweep clear of each sleeper’s nose and mouth, 
and anounced that the couches were ready. 

The men flung themselves down, adjuring 
the punkah-coolies by all the powers of Eblis 
to pull. Every door and window was shut, 
for the outside air was that of an oven. The 
atmosphere within was only 104°, as the ther- 
mometer attested, and heavy with the foul 
smell of badly trimmed kerosene lamps; and 
this stench, combined with that of native to- 
bacco, baked brick, and dried earth, sends the 
heart of many a strong man down to his boots, 
for it is the smell of the great Indian Empire 
when she turns herself for six months into a 
house of torment. Spurstow packed his pil- 
lows craftily, so that he reclined rather than 
lay, his head at a safe elevation above his feet. 
It is not good to sleep on a low pillow in the 
hot weather if you happen to be of thick- 
necked build, for you may pass with lively 
snores and gurglings from natural sleep into 
the deep slumber of heat-apoplexy. 

“Pack your pillows,” said the doctor, 
sharply, as he saw Hummil preparing to lie 
down at full length. 


AT THE END OF 


152 

The night-light was trimmed; the shadow 
of the punkah wavered across the room, and the 
; flick of the punkah-towel and the soft whine 
of the rope through the wall-hole followed it. 
Then the punkah flagged, almost ceased. The 
sweat poured from Spurstow’s brow. Should 
he go out and harangue the coolie ? It started 
forward again with a savage jerk, and a pin 
came out of the towels. When this was re- 
placed, a tom-tom in the coolie lines began to 
beat with the steady throb of a swollen artery 
inside some brain-fevered skull. Spurstow 
turned on his side and swore gently. There 
was no movement on Hummil’s part. The 
man had composed himself as rigidly as a 
corpse, his hands clinched at his sides. The 
respiration was too hurried for any suspicion 
of sleep. Spurstow looked at the set face. 
The jaws were clinched, and there was a 
pucker round the quivering eyelids. 

“He’s holding himself as tightly as ever he 
can,” thought Spurstow. “What a sham it is ! 
and what in the world is the matter with him ? 
— Hummil!” 

“Yes.” 

“Can’t you get to sleep?” 

“No.” 

“Head hot? Throat feeling bulgy? or 
how?” 


THE PASSAGE 


153 


“Neither, thanks. I don’t sleep much, you 
know.” 

“Feel pretty bad?” 

“Pretty bad, thanks. There is a tom-tom 
outside, isn’t there? I thought it was my 
head at first. Oh, Spurstow, for pity’s sake, 
give me something that will put me asleep — 
sound sleep — if it’s only for six hours!” He 
sprung up. “I haven’t been able to sleep nat- 
urally for days, and I can’t stand it! — I can’t 
stand it!” 

“Poor old chap!” 

“That’s no use. Give me something to make 
me sleep. I tell you I’m nearly mad. I don’t 
know what I say half my time. For three 
weeks I’ve had to think and spell out every 
word that has come through my lips before 
I dared say it. I had to get my sentences out 
down to the last word, for fear of talking 
drivel if I didn’t. Isn’t that enough to drive 
a man mad ? I can’t see things correctly now, 
and I’ve lost my sense of touch. Make me 
sleep. Oh, Spurstow, for the love of God, 
make me sleep sound. It isn’t enough merely 
to let me dream. Let me sleep !” 

“All right, old man, all right. Go slow. 
You aren’t half as bad as you think” The 
flood-gates of reserve once broken, Hummil 
was clinging to him like a frightened child. 


154 


AT THE END OF 


“You’re pinching my arm to pieces.” 

“I’ll break your neck if you don’t do some- 
thing for me. No, I didn’t mean that. Don’t 
be angry, old fellow.” He wiped the sweat off 
himself as he fought to regain composure. 
“As a matter of fact, I’m a bit restless and off 
my oats, and perhaps you could recommend 
some sort of sleeping-mixture — bromide of 
potassium.” 

“Bromide of skittles! Why didn’t you tell 
me this before? Let go of my arm, and I’ll 
see if there’s anything in my cigarette-case to 
suit your complaint.” He hunted among his 
day-clothes, turned up the lamp, opened a lit- 
tle silver cigarette-case, and advanced on the 
expectant Hummil with the daintiest of fairy 
squirts. 

“The last appeal of civilization,” said he, 
“and a thing I hate to use. Hold out your 
arm. Well, your sleeplessness hasn’t ruined 
your muscle; and what a thick hide it is! 
Might as well inject a buffalo subcutaneously. 
Now in a few minutes the morphia will begin 
working: Lie down and wait.” 

A smile of unalloyed and idiotic delight 
began to creep over Hummil’s face. “I 
think,” he whispered — “I think I’m going off 
now. Gad! it’s positively heavenly! Spurs- 


THE PASSAGE 


155 

tow, you must give me that case to keep ; you” 
— The voice ceased as the head fell back. 

“Not for a good deal,” said Spurstow to the 
unconscious form. “And now, my friend, 
sleeplessness of your kind being very apt to re- 
lax the moral fibre in little matters of life and 
death, I’ll just take the liberty of spiking your 
guns.” 

He paddled into Hummil’s saddle-room in 
his bare feet, and uncased a twelve-bore, an 
express, and a revolver. Of the first he un- 
screwed the nipples and hid them in the bot- 
tom of a saddlery-case; of the second he ab- 
stracted the lever, placing it behind a big ward- 
robe. The third he merely opened, and 
knocked the doll-head bolt of the grip up with 
the heel of the riding-boot. 

“That’s settled,” he said, as he shook the 
sweat off his hands. “These little precautions 
will at least give you time to turn. You have 
too much sympathy with gun-room accidents.” 

And as he rose from his knees, the thick 
muffled voice of Hummil cried in the door- 
way: “You fool!” 

Such tones they use who speak in the lucid 
intervals of delirium to their friends a little 
before they die. 

Spurstow jumped with sheer fright. Hum- 


AT THE END OF 


156 

mil stood in the doorway, rocking with help- 
less laughter. 

“That was awf’ly good of you, I’m sure,” 
he said, very slowly, feeling for his words. “I 
don’t intend to go out by my own hand at 
present. I say, Spurstow, that stuff won’t 
work. What shall I do? What shall I do?” 
A panic terror stood in his eyes. 

“Lie down and give it a chance. Lie down 
at once.” 

“I daren’t. It will only take me half-way 
again, and I shan’t be able to get away this 
time. Do you know it was all I could do to 
come out just now? Generally I am as quick 
as lightning ; but you have clogged my feet. I 
was nearly caught.” 

“Oh, yes, I understand. Go and lie down.” 

“No, it isn’t delirium ; but it was an awfully 
mean trick to play on me. Do you know I 
might have died?” 

As a sponge rubs a slate clean, so some 
power unknown to Spurstow had wiped out 
of Hummil’s face all that stamped it for the 
face of a man, and he stood at the doorway in 
the expression of his lost innocence. He had 
slept back into terrified childhood. 

“Is he going to die on the spot?” thought 
Spurstow. Then, aloud: “All right, my son. 


THE PASSAGE 


157 


Come back to bed, and tell me all about it. 
You couldn’t sleep; but what was all the rest 
of the nonsense?” 

“A place — a place down there,” said Hum- 
mil, with simple sincerity. The drug was 
acting on him by waves, and he was flung 
from the fear of a strong man to the fright 
of a child as his nerves gathered sense or 
were dulled. 

“Good God! I’ve been afraid of it for 
months past, Spurstow. It has made every 
night hell to me; and yet I’m not conscious 
of having done anything wrong.” 

“Be still, and I’ll give you another dose. 
We’ll stop your nightmares, you unutterable 
idiot !” 

“Yes, but you must give me so much that I 
can’t get away. You must make me quite 
sleepy — not just a little sleepy. It’s so hard 
to run then.” 

“I know it; I know it. I’ve felt it myself. 
The symptoms are exactly as you describe.” 

“Oh, don’t laugh at me, confound you ! Be- 
fore this awful sleeplessness came to me I’ve 
tried to rest on my elbow and put a spur in 
the bed to sting me when I fell back. Look !” 

“By Jove! the man has been roweled like 
a horse! Ridden by the nightmare with a 


158 AT THE END OF 

vengeance! And we all thought him sensible 
enough. Heaven send us understanding! You 
like to talk, don’t you, old man?” 

“Yes, sometimes. Not when I’m fright- 
ened. Then I want to run. Don’t you?” 

“Always. Before I give you your second 
dose, try to tell me exactly what your trouble 
is.” 

Hummil spoke in broken whispers for 
nearly ten minutes, while Spurstow looked 
into the pupils of his eyes and passed his hand 
before them once or twice. 

At the end of the narrative the silver cig- 
arette-case was produced, and the last words 
that Hummil said as he fell back for the 
second time were: “Put me quite to sleep; 
for if I’m caught, I die — I die!” 

“Yes, yes; we all do that sooner or later, 
thank Heaven! who has set a term to our 
miseries,” said Spurstow, setting the cushions 
under the head. “It occurs to me that unless 
I drink something I shall go out before my 
time. I’ve stopped sweating, and I wear a 
seventeen-inch collar.” And he brewed him- 
self scalding hot tea, which is an excellent 
remedy against heat-apoplexy if you take three 
or four cups of it in time. Then he watched 
the sleeper. 


THE PASSAGE 


159 


“A blind face that cries and can’t wipe its 
eyes. H’m! Decidedly, Hummil ought to go 
on leave as soon as possible; and, sane or 
otherwise, he undoubtedly did rowel himself 
most cruelly. Well, Heaven send us under- 
standing!” 

At midday Hummil rose, with an evil taste 
in his mouth, but an unclouded eye and a joy- 
ful heart. 

“I was pretty bad last night, wasn’t I?” 
said he. 

“I have seen healthier men. You must have 
had a touch of the sun. Look here : if I write 
you a swingeing medical certificate, will you 
apply for leave on the spot?” 

“No.” 

“Why not? You want it.” 

“Yes, but I can hold on till the weather’s 
a little cooler.” 

“Why should you, if you can get relieved 
on the spot?” 

“Burkett is the only man who could be 
sent; and he’s a born fool.” 

“Oh, never mind about the line. You 
aren’t so important as all that. Wire for 
leave, if necessary.” 

Hummil looked very uncomfortable. 

“I can hold on till the rains,” he said, eva- 
sively. 


i6o 


AT THE END OF 


‘‘You can’t. Wire to headquarters for Bur- 
kett.” 

“I won’t. If you want to know why, par- 
ticularly, Burkett is married, and his wife’s 
just had a kid, and she’s up at Simla, in the 
cool, and Burkett has a very nice billet that 
takes him into Simla from Saturday to Mon- 
day. That little woman isn’t at all well. If 
Burkett was transferred she’d try to follow 
him. If she left the baby behind she’d fret 
herself to death. If she came — and Burkett’s 
one of those selfish little beasts who are al- 
ways talking about a wife’s place being with 
her husband — she’d die. Its murder to bring 
a woman here just now. Burkett has got 
the physique of a rat. If he came here he’d 
go out; and I know she hasn’t any money, 
and I’m pretty sure she’d go out too. I’m 
salted in a sort of way, and I’m not married. 
Wait till the rains, and then Burkett can get 
thin down here. It’ll do him heaps of good.” 

“Do you mean to say that you intend to 
face — what you have faced, for the next fifty- 
six nights?” 

“Oh, it won’t be so bad, now you’ve shown 
me a way out of it. I can always wire to 
you. Besides, now I’ve once got into the way 
of sleeping, it’ll be all right. Anyhow, I 


THE PASSAGE 


161 


sha’n’t put in for leave. That’s the long and 
the short of it.” 

“My great Scott! I thought all that sort 
of thing was dead and done with.” 

“Bosh! You’d do the same yourself. I 
feel a new man, thanks to that cigarette-case. 
You’re going over to camp now, aren’t you?” 

“Yes ; but I’ll try to look you up every other 
day, if I can.” 

“I’m not bad enough for that. I don’t want 
you to bother. Give the coolies gin and ketch- 
up.” 

“Then you feel all right?” 

“Fit to fight for my life, but not to stand 
out in the sun talking to you. Go along, old 
man, and bless you!” 

Hummil turned on his heel to face the echo- 
ing desolation of his bungalow, and the first 
thing he saw standing in the veranda was the 
figure of himself. He had met a similar ap- 
parition once before, when he was suffering 
from overwork and the strain of the hot 
weather. 

“This is bad — already,” he said, rubbing his 
eyes. “If the thing slides away from me all 
in one piece, like a ghost, I shall know it is 
only my eyes and stomach that are out of or- 
der. If it walks, I shall know that my head 
is going.” 


AT THE END OF 


162 

He walked to the figure, which naturally 
kept at an unvarying distance from him, as 
is the use of all spectres that are born of over- 
work. It slid through the house and dissolved 
into swimming specks within the eyeball as 
soon as it reached the burning light of the 
garden. Hummil went about his business till 
even. When he came into dinner he found 
himself sitting at the table. The thing rose 
and walked out hastily. 

No living man knows what that week held 
for Hummil. An increase of the epidemic 
kept Spurstow in camp among the coolies, and 
all he could do was to telegraph to Mottram, 
bidding him go to the bungalow and sleep 
there. But Mottram was forty miles away 
from the nearest telegraph, and knew nothing 
of anything save the needs of the survey till 
he met early on Sunday morning Lowndes 
and Spurstow heading toward Hummil’s for 
the weekly gathering. 

“Hope the poor chap’s in a better temper,” 
said the former, swinging himself off his horse 
at the door. “I suppose he isn’t up yet.” 

“I’ll just have a look at him,” said the doc- 
tor. “If he’s asleep there’s no need to wake 
him.” 

And an instant later, by the tone of Spur- 


THE PASSAGE 163 

stow’s voice calling upon them to enter, the 
men knew what had happened. 

The punkah was still being pulled over the 
bed, but Hummil had departed this life at 
least three hours before. 

The body lay on its back, hands clinched 
by the side, as Spurstow had seen it lying seven 
nights previously. In the staring eyes was 
written terror beyond the expression of any 
pen. 

Mottram, who had entered behind Lowndes, 
bent over the dead and touched the forehead 
lightly with his lips. “Oh, you lucky, lucky 
devil !” he whispered. 

But Lowndes had seen the eyes, and had 
withdrawn shuddering to the other side of the 
room. 

“Poor chap! poor chap! And the last time 
I met him I was angry. Spurstow, we should 
have watched him. Has he” — 

Deftly Spurstow continued his investiga- 
tions, ending by a search round the room. 

“No, he hasn’t,” he snapped. “There’s no 
trace of anything. Call in the servants.” 

They came, eight or ten of them, whisper- 
ing and peering over each other’s shoulders. 

“When did your sahib go to bed?” said 
Spurstow. 


164 


AT THE END OF 


“At eleven or ten, we think,” said Hummil’s 
personal servant. 

“He was well then? But how should you 
know ?” 

“He was not ill, as far as our comprehen- 
sion extended. But he had slept very little 
for three nights. This I know, because I saw 
him walking much, and especially in the heart 
of the night.” 

As Spurstow was arranging the sheet, a 
big, straight-necked hunting-spur tumbled on 
the ground. The doctor groaned. The per- 
sonal servant peeped at the body. 

“What do you think, Chuma?” said Spur- 
stow, catching the look in the dark face. 

“Heaven-born, in my poor opinion, this that 
was my master has descended into the Dark 
Places, and there has been caught, because 
he was not able to escape with sufficient speed. 
We have the spur for evidence that he fought 
with Fear. Thus have I seen men of my race 
do with thorns when a spell was laid upon 
them to overtake them in their sleeping hours 
and they dared not sleep.” 

“Chuma, you’re a mud-head. Go out and 
prepare seals to be set on the sahib’s property.” 

“God has made the heaven-born. God has 
made me. Who are we, to inquire into the 


THE PASSAGE 


165 

dispensations of God? I will bid the other 
servants hold aloof while you are reckoning 
the tale of the sahib’s property. They are 
all thieves, and would steal.” 

“As far as I can make out, he died from — 
oh, anything: stopping of the heart’s action, 
heat-apoplexy, or some other visitation,” said 
Spurstow to his companions. “We must make 
an inventory of his effects, and so on.” 

“He was scared to death,” insisted Lowndes. 
“Look at those eyes! For pity’s sake, don’t 
let him be buried with them open!” 

“Whatever it was, he’s out of all the 
trouble now,” said Mottram, softly. 

Spurstow was peering into the open eyes. 

“Come here,” said he. “Can you see any- 
thing there ?” 

“I can’t face it !” whimpered Lowndes. 
“Cover up the face! Is there any fear on 
earth that can turn a man into that likeness? 
It’s ghastly. Oh, Spurstow, cover him up!” 

“No fear- — on earth,” said Spurstow. Mot- 
tram leaned over his shoulder and looked in- 
tently. 

“I see nothing except some grey blurs in 
the pupil. There can be nothing there, you 
know.” 

“Even so. Well, let’s think. I’ll take half a 


AT THE END OF 


1 66 

a day to knock up any sort of coffin; and he 
must have died at midnight. Lowndes, old 
man, go out and tell the coolies to break 
ground next to Jevins’ grave. Mottram, go 
round the house with Chuma and see that the 
seals are put on things. Send a couple of 
men to me here, and I’ll arrange.” 

The strong-armed servants when they re- 
turned to their own kind told a strange story 
of the doctor sahib vainly trying to call their 
master back to life by magic arts — to wit, the 
holding of a little green box opposite each of 
the dead man’s eyes, of a frequent clicking of 
the same, and of a bewildered muttering on 
the part of the doctor sahib, who subsequently 
took the little green box away with him. 

The resonant hammering of a coffin lid is no 
pleasant thing to hear, but those who have 
experience maintain that much more terrible 
is the soft swish of the bed-linen, the reeving 
and unreeving of the bed-tapes, when he who 
has fallen by the roadside is appareled for 
burial, sinking gradually as the tapes are tied 
over, till the swaddled shape touches the floor 
and there is no protest against the indignity 
of hasty disposal. 

At the last moment Lowndes was seized 
with scruples of conscience. “Ought you to 


THE PASSAGE 167 

read the service — from beginning to end?” 
said he. 

“I intend to. You’re my senior as a civilian. 
You can take it, if you like.” 

“I didn’t mean that for a moment, I only 
thought if we could get a chaplain from some- 
where — I’m willing to ride anywhere — and 
give poor Hummil a better chance. That’s 
all.” 

“Bosh!” said Spurstow, as he framed his 
lips to the tremendous words that stand at the 
head of the burial service. 

After breakfast they smoked a pipe in si- 
lence to the memory of the dead. Then said 
Spurstow, absently: 

“ ’Tisn’t in medical science.” 

“What?” 

“Things in a dead man’s eyes.” 

“For goodness’ sake, leave that horror 
alone!” said Lowndes. “I’ve seen a native die 
of fright when a tiger chivied him. I know 
what killed Hummil.” 

“The deuce you do! I’m going to try to 
see.” And the doctor retreated into the bath- 
room with a Kodak camera, splashing and 
grunting for ten minutes. Then there was 
the sound of something being hammered to 


1 68 


AT THE END OF 


pieces, and Spurstow emerged, very white 
indeed. 

“Have you got a picture?” said Mottram. 
“What does the thing look like?” 

“Nothing there. It was impossible, of 
course. You needn’t look, Mottram. I’ve 
torn up the films. There was nothing there. 
It was impossible.” 

“That,” said Lowndes, very distinctly, 
watching the shaking hand striving to relight 
the pipe, “is a damned lie.” 

There was no further speech for a long 
time. The hot wind whistled without, and the 
dry trees sobbed. Presently the daily train, 
winking brass, burnished steel, and spouting 
steam, pulled up panting in the intense glare. 
“We’d better go on on that,” said Spurstow. 
“Go back to work. I’ve written my certifi- 
cate. We can’t do any more good here. Come 
on.” 

No one moved. It is not pleasant to face 
railway journeys at midday in June. Spur- 
stow gathered up his hat and whip, and, turn- 
ing in the doorway, said: 

“There may be heaven— there must be hell. 

Meantime, there is our life here. We-ell?” 

But neither Mottram nor Lowndes had any 
answer to the question. 


THE MAN WHO WAS 
















tTHE MAN WHO WAS 


L ET it be clearly understood that the Rus- 
sian is a delightful person till he tucks 
his shirt in. As an oriental he is charming. It 
is only when he insists upon being treated 
as the most easterly of Western peoples, in- 
stead of the most westerly of Easterns, that 
he becomes a racial anomaly extremely difficult 
to handle. The host never knows which side 
of his nature is going to turn up next. 

Dirkovitch was a Russian — a Russian of 
the Russians, as he said — who appeared to get 
his bread by serving the czar as an officer in 
a Cossack regiment, and corresponding for a 
Russian newspaper with a name that was never 
twice the same. He was a handsome young 
Oriental, with a taste for wandering through 
unexplored portions of the earth, and he ar- 
rived in India from nowhere in particular. 
At least no living man could ascertain whether 
it was by way of Balkh, Budukhshan, Chitral, 
Beloochistan, Nepaul, or anywhere else. The 
Indian government, being in an unusually af- 
I7i 


172 


THE MAN WHO WAS 


fable mood, gave orders that he was to be 
civilly treated, and shown everything that was 
to be seen; so he drifted, talking bad English 
and worse French, from one city to another 
till he foregathered with her Majesty’s White 
Hussars in the city of Peshawur, which stands 
at the mouth of that narrow swordcut in the 
hills that men call the Khyber Pass. He was 
undoubtedly an officer, and he was decor- 
ated, after the manner of the Russians, with 
little enameled crosses, and he could talk, and 
(though this has nothing to do with his mer- 
its) he had been given up as a hopeless task 
or case by the Black Tyrones, who, individu- 
ally and collectively, with hot whisky and 
honey, mulled brandy and mixed spirits of all 
kinds, had striven in all hospitality to make 
him drunk. And when the Black Tyrones, 
who are exclusively Irish, fail to disturb the 
peace of the head of a foreigner, that for- 
eigner is certain to be a superior man. This 
was the argument of the Black Tyrones, but 
they were ever an unruly and self-opinionated 
regiment, and they allowed junior subalterns 
of four years’ service to choose their wines. 
The spirits were always purchased by the 
colonel and a committee of majors. And a 
regiment that would so behave may be re- 
spected but cannot be loved. 


THE MAN WHO WAS 


173 


The White Hussars were as conscientious 
in choosing their wine as in charging the ene- 
my. There was a brandy that had been pur- 
chased by a cultured colonel a few years after 
the battle of Waterloo. It has been maturing 
ever since, and it was a marvelous brandy at 
the purchasing. The memory of that liquor 
would cause men to weep as they lay dying 
in the teak forests of Upper Burmah or the 
slime of the Irrawaddy. And there was a port 
which was notable ; and there was a champagne 
of an obscure brand, which always came to 
mess without any labels, because the White 
Hussars wished none to know where the source 
of supply might be found. The officer on 
whose head the champagne-choosing lay was 
forbidden the use of tobacco for six weeks 
previous to sampling. 

This particularity of detail is necessary to 
emphasize the fact that that champagne, that 
port, and, above all, that brandy — the green 
and yellow and white liquors did not count — 
was placed at the absolute disposition of Dirk- 
ovitch, and he enjoyed himself hugely — even 
more than among the black Tyrones. 

But he remained distressingly European 
through it all. The White Hussars were — 
“My dear true friends,” “Fellow-soldiers glor- 


174 


THE MAN WHO WAS 


ious,” and “Brothers inseparable.” He would 
unburden himself by the hour on the glorious 
future that awaited the combined arms of En- 
gland and Russia when their hearts and their 
territories should run side by side, and the 
great mission of civilizing Asia should begin. 
That was unsatisfactory, because Asia is not 
going to be civilized after the methods of the 
West. There is too much Asia, and she is too 
old. You cannot reform a lady of many lov- 
ers, and Asia has been insatiable in her flirta- 
tions aforetime. She will never attend 
Sunday-school, or learn to vote save with 
swords for tickets. 

Dirkovitch knew this as well as anyone else, 
but it suited him to talk special-correspon- 
dently and to make himself as genial as he 
could. Now and then he volunteered a little, 
a very little, information about his own Sotnia 
of Cossacks, left apparently to look after them- 
selves somewhere at the back of beyond. He 
had done rough work in Central Asia, and 
had seen rather more help-yourself fighting 
than most men of his years. But he was care- 
ful never to betray his superiority, and more 
than careful to praise on all occasions the ap- 
pearance, drill, uniform, and organization of 
her Majesty’s White Hussars. And, indeed, 


THE MAN WHO WAS 


175 


they were a regiment to be admired. When 
Mrs. Durgan, widow of the late Sir John 
Durgan, arrived in their station, and after a 
short time had been proposed to by every 
single man at mess, she put the public senti- 
ment very neatly when she explained that 
they were all so nice that unless she could 
marry them all, including the colonel and some 
majors who were already married, she was 
not going to content herself with one of them. 
Wherefore she wedded a little man in a rifle 
regiment — being by nature contradictious — 
and the White Hussars were going to wear 
crape on their arms, but compromised by at- 
tending the wedding in full force, and lining 
the aisle with unutterable reproach. She had 
jilted them all — from Basset-Holmer, the 
senior captain, to Little Mildred, the last sub- 
altern, and he could have given her four thou- 
sand a year and a title. He was a viscount, 
and on his arrival the mess had said he had 
better go into the Guards, because they were 
all sons of large grocers and small clothiers 
in the Hussars, but Mildred begged very hard 
to be allowed to stay, and behaved so prettily 
that he was forgiven, and became a man, 
which is much more important than being 
any sort of viscount. 


176 


THE MAN WHO WAS 


The only persons who did not share the gen- 
eral regard for the White Hussars were a few 
thousand gentlemen of Jewish extraction who 
lived across the border, and answered to the 
name of Pathan. They had only met the regi- 
ment officially, and for something less than 
twenty minutes, but the interview, which was 
complicated with many casualties, had filled 
them with prejudice. They even called the 
White Hussars “children of the devil,” and 
sons of persons whom it would be perfectly 
impossible to meet in decent society. Yet they 
were not above making their aversion fill their 
money-belts. The regiment possessed car- 
bines, beautiful Martini-Henry carbines, that 
would cob a bullet into an enemy’s camp at 
one thousand yards, and were even handier 
than the long rifle. Therefore they were 
coveted all along the border, and, since de- 
mand inevitably breeds supply, they were sup- 
plied at the risk of life and limb for exactly 
their weight in coined silver — seven and one 
half pounds of rupees, or sixten pounds and a 
few shillings each, reckoning the rupee at par. 
They were stolen at night by snaky-haired 
thieves that crawled on their stomachs under 
the nose of the sentries; they disappeared 
mysteriously from arm-racks; and in the hot 


THE MAN WHO WAS 


177 


weather, when all the doors and windows were 
open, they vanished like puffs of their own 
smoke. The border people desired them first 
for their own family vendettas, and then for 
contingencies. But in the long cold nights of 
the Northern Indian winter they were stolen 
most extensively. The traffic of murder was 
liveliest among the hills at that season, and 
prices ruled high. The regimental guards 
were first doubled and then trebled. A 
trooper does not much care if he loses a weapon 
— government must make it good — but he 
deeply resents the loss of his sleep. The regi- 
ment grew very angry, and one night-thief 
who managed to limp away bears the visible 
marks of their anger upon him to this hour. 
That incident stopped the burglaries for a 
time, and the guards were reduced accord- 
ingly, and the regiment devoted itself to polo 
with unexpected results, for it beat by two 
goals to one that very terrible polo corps the 
Lushkar Light Horse, though the latter had 
four ponies a piece for a short hour’s fight, 
as well as a native officer who played like a 
lambent flame across the ground. 

Then they gave a dinner to celebrate the 
event. The Lushkar team came, and Dirko- 
vitch came, in the fullest full uniform of a 


178 


THE MAN WHO WAS 


Cossack officer, which is as full as a dressing- 
gown, and was introduced to the Lushkars, 
and opened his eyes as he regarded them. 
They were lighter men than the Hussars, and 
they carried themselves with the swing that is 
the peculiar right of the Punjab frontier force 
and all irregular horse. Like everything else 
in the service, it has to be learned ; but, unlike 
many things, it is never forgotten, and re- 
mains on the body till death. 

The great beam-roofed mess-room of the 
White Hussars was a sight to be remembered. 
All the mess-plate was on the long table — the 
same table that had served up the bodies of 
five dead officers in a forgotten fight long and 
long ago — the dingy, battered standards 
faced the door of entrance, clumps of winter 
roses lay between the silver candlesticks, the 
portraits of eminent officers deceased looked 
down on their successors from between the 
heads of sambhur, nilghai, maikhor, and, 
pride of all the mess, two grinning snow-leop- 
ards that had cost Basset-Holmer four 
months’ leave that he might have spent in 
England instead of on the road to Thibet, and 
the daily risk of his life on ledge, snow-slide, 
and grassy grass-slope. 

The servants, in spotless white muslin and 


THE MAN WHO WAS 


179 


the crest of their regiments on the brow of 
their turbans, waited behind their masters, 
who were clad in the scarlet and gold of the 
White Hussars and the cream and silver of 
the Lushkar Light Horse. Dirkovitch’s dull 
green uniform was the only dark spot at the 
board, but his big onyx eyes made up for it. 
He was fraternizing effusively with the cap- 
tain of the Lushkar team, who was wondering 
how many of Dirkovitch’s Cossacks his own, 
long, lathy, down-countrymen could account 
for in a fair charge. But one does not speak 
of these things openly. 

The talk rose higher and higher, and the 
regimental band played betwen the courses, as 
is the immemorial custom, till all tongues 
ceased for a moment with the removal of the 
dinner slips and the First Toast of Obligation, 
when the colonel, rising, said: “Mr. Vice, the 
Queen,” and Little Mildred from the bottom 
of the table answered : “The Queen, God bless 
her!” and the big spurs clanked as the big 
men heaved themselves up and drank the 
Queen, upon whose pay they were falsely 
supposed to pay their mess-bills. That sacra- 
ment of the mess never grows old, and never 
ceases to bring a lump into the throat of the lis- 
tener wherever he be, by land or by sea. Dirk- 


i8o 


THE MAN WHO WAS 


ovitch rose with his “brothers glorious/’ but 
he could not understand. No one but an offi- 
cer can understand what the toast means; and 
the bulk have more sentiment than compre- 
hension. It all comes to the same in the end, as 
the enemy said when he was wriggling on a 
lance-point. Immediately after the little silence 
that follows on the ceremony there en- 
tered the native officer who had played for the 
Lushkar team. He could not of course eat 
with the alien, but he came in at dessert, all 
six feet of him, with the blue-and-silver tur- 
ban atop and the big black top-boots below. 
The mess rose joyously as he thrust forward 
the hilt of his sabre, in token of realty, for the 
colonel of the White Hussars to touch, and 
dropped into a vacant chair amid shouts of 
Rung ho! “Hira Singh!” (which being 
translated means “Go in and win!”). “Did 
I whack you over the knee, old man?” “Res- 
saidar Sahib, what the devil made you play 
that kicking pig of a pony in the last ten min- 
utes?” “Shabash, Ressaidar Sahib!” Then 
the voice of the colonel : “The health of Res- 
saidar Hira Singh!” 

After the shouting had died away Hira 
Singh rose to reply, for he was the cadet of a 
royal house, the son of a king’s son, and knew 


THE MAN WHO WAS 181 

what was due on these occasions. Thus he 
spoke in the vernacular : 

“Colonel Sahib and officers of this regi- 
ment, much honor have you done me. This 
will I remember. We came down from afar 
to play you; but we were beaten.” (“No 
fault of yours, Ressaidar Sahib. Played on 
your own ground, y’ know. Your ponies were 
cramped from the railway. Don’t apolo- 
gize.”) “Therefore perhaps we will come 
again if it be so ordained.” (“Hear! Hear, 
hear, indeed! Bravo! H’sh!”) “Then we 
will play you afresh” (“Happy to meet 
you”), “till there are left no feet upon our 
ponies. Thus far for sport.” He dropped 
one hand on his sword-hilt, and his eye wan- 
dered to Dirkovitch lolling back in his chair. 
“But if by the will of God there arises any 
other game which is not the polo game, then 
be assured, Colonel Sahib and officers, that 
we shall play it out side by side, though they” 
— again his eye sought Dirkovitch — “though 
they, I say, have fifty ponies to our one 
horse.” And with a deep-mouthed Rung ho! 
that rang like a musket-butt on flag-stones, he 
sat down amid shoutings. 

Dirkovitch, who had devoted himself stead- 
ily to the brandy — the terrible brandy afore- 


1 8 2 


THE MAN WHO WAS 


mentioned — did not understand, nor did the 
expurgated translations offered to him at all 
convey the point. Decidedly the native offi- 
cer’s was the speech of the evening, and the 
clamor might have continued to the dawn had 
it not been broken by the noise of a shot with- 
out that sent every man feeling at his defense- 
less left side. It is notable that Dirkovitch 
“reached back,” after the American fashion 
— a gesture that set the captain of the Lush- 
kar team wondering how Cossack officers 
were armed at mess. Then there was a scuffle 
and a yell of pain. 

“Carbine-stealing again!” said the adju- 
tant, calmly sinking back in his chair. “This 
comes of reducing the guards. I hope the 
sentries have killed him.” 

The feet of armed men pounded on the ve- 
randa flags, and it sounded as though some- 
thing was being dragged. 

“Why don’t they put him in the cells till the 
morning?” said the colonel, testily. “See if 
they’ve damaged him, sergeant.” 

The mess-sergeant fled out into the dark- 
ness, and returned with two troopers and a 
corporal, all very much perplexed. 

“Caught a man stealin’ carbines, sir,” said 
the corporal. “Leastways ’e was crawlin’ 


THE MAN WHO WAS 183 

toward the barricks, sir, past the main-road 
sentries ; an’ the sentry ’e says, sir” — 

The limp heap of rags upheld by the three 
men groaned. Never was seen so destitute 
and demoralized an Afghan. He was tur- 
banless, shoeless, caked with dirt, and all but 
dead with rough handling. Hira Singh 
started slightly at the sound of the man’s pain. 
Dirkovitch took another liquor glass of 
brandy. 

“What does the sentry say?” said the 
colonel. 

“Sez he speaks English, sir,” said the cor- 
poral. 

“So you brought him into mess instead of 
handing him over to the sergeant! If he 
spoke all the tongues of the Pentecost, you’ve 
no business” — 

Again the bundle groaned and muttered. 
Little Mildred had risen from his place to in- 
spect. He jumped back as though he had 
been shot. 

“Perhaps it would be better, sir, to send 
the men away,” said he to the colonel, for he 
was a much-privileged subaltern. He put his 
arms round the rag-bound horror as he spoke, 
and dropped him into a chair. It may not 
have been explained that the littleness of Mil- 


1 84 THE MAN WHO WAS 

dred lay in his being six feet four, and big 
in proportion. The corporal, seeing that an 
officer was disposed to look after the capture, 
and that the colonel’s eye was beginning to 
blaze, promptly removed himself and his men. 
The mess was left alone with the carbine 
thief, who laid his head on the table and wept 
bitterly, hopelessly, and inconsolably, as little 
children weep. 

Hira Singh leaped to his feet with a long- 
drawn vernacular oath. “Colonel Sahib,” 
said he, “that man is no Afghan, for they 
weep ‘AH AH’ Nor is he of Hindoostan, for 
they weep ‘Oh! Ho!’ He weeps after the 
fashion of the white men, who say ‘Ow! 
Ow!’ ” 

“Now, where the dickens did you get that 
knowledge, Hira Singh?” said the captain of 
the Lushkar team. 

“Hear him!” said Hira Singh, simply, 
pointing at the crumpled figure, that wept as 
though it would never cease. 

“He said, ‘My God !’ ” said Little Mildred. 
“I heard him say it.” 

The colonel and the mess-room looked at 
the man in silence. It is a horrible thing to 
hear a man cry. A woman can sob from the 
top of her palate, or her lips, or anywhere else, 


THE MAN WHO WAS 185 

but a man cries from his diaphragm, and it 
rends him to pieces. Also, the exhibition 
causes the throat of the on-looker to close at 
the top. 

“Poor devil!” said the colonel, coughing 
tremendously. “We ought to send him to 
hospital. He’s been man-handled.” 

Now the adjutant loved his rifles. They 
were to him as his grandchildren — the men 
standing in the first place. He grunted re- 
belliously : “I can understand an Afghan 
stealing, because he’s made that way. But 
I can’t understand his crying. That makes 
it worse.” 

The brandy must have affected Dirkovitch, 
for he lay back in his chair and stared at the 
ceiling. There was nothing special in the ceil- 
ing beyond a shadow as of a huge black cof- 
fin. Owing to some peculiarity in the con- 
struction of the mess-room, this shadow was 
always thrown when the candles were lighted. 
It never disturbed the digestion of the White 
Hussars. They were, in fact, rather proud of 
it. 

“Is he going to cry all night,” said the col- 
onel, “or are we supposed to sit up with Little 
Mildred’s guest until he feels better?” 

The man in the chair threw up his head and 


1 86 


THE MAN WHO WAS 


stared at the mess. Outside, the wheels of the 
first of those bidden to the festivities crunched 
the roadway. 

“Oh, my God! ,, said the man in the chair, 
and every soul in the mess rose to his feet. 
Then the Lushkar captain did a deed for 
which he ought to have been given the Vic- 
toria Cross — distinguished gallantry in a fight 
against overwhelming curiosity. He picked 
up his team with his eyes as the hostess picks 
up the ladies at the opportune moment, and 
pausing only by the colonel’s chair to say: 
“This isn’t our affair, you know, sir,” led the 
team into the veranda and the gardens. Hira 
Singh was the last, and he looked at Dirko- 
vitch as he moved. But Dirkovitch had de- 
parted into a brandy paradise of his own. His 
lips moved without sound, and he was study- 
ing the coffin on the ceiling. 

“White — white all over,” said Basset-Hol- 
mer, the adjutant. “What a pernicious rene- 
gade he must be! I wonder where he came 
from ?” 

The colonel shook the man gently by the 
arm, and “Who are you?” said he. 

There was no answer. The man stared 
round the mess-room and smiled in the 
colonel’s face. Little Mildred, who was al- 


THE MAN WHO WAS 


187 


ways more of a woman than a man till “Boot 
and saddle” was sounded repeated the ques- 
tion in a voice that would have drawn confi- 
dences from a geyser. The man only smiled. 
Dirkovitch, at the far end of the table, slid 
gently from his chair to the floor. No son of 
Adam, in this present imperfect world, can 
mix the Hussars’ champagne with the Hus- 
sars’ brandy by five and eight glasses of each 
without remembering the pit whence he has 
been digged and descended thither. The band 
began to play the tune with which the White 
Hussars, from the date of their formation, 
preface all their functions. They would 
sooner be disbanded than abandon that tune. 
It is a part of their system. The man 
straightened himself in his chair and 
drummed on the table with his fingers. 

“I don’t see why we should entertain luna- 
tics,” said the colonel ; “call a guard and send 
him of! to the cells. We’ll look into the busi- 
ness in the morning. Give him a glass of 
wine first, though.” 

Little Mildred filled a sherry glass with the 
brandy and thrust it over to the man. He 
drank, and the tune rose louder, and he 
straightened himself yet more. Then he put 
out his long-taloned hands to a piece of plate 


1 88 


THE MAN WHO WAS 


opposite and fingered it lovingly. There was 
a mystery connected with that piece of plate 
in the shape of a spring, which converted 
what was a seven-branched candlestick, three 
springs each side and one in the middle, into 
a sort of wheel-spoke candelabrum. He 
found the spring, pressed it, and laughed 
weakly. He rose from his chair and inspected 
a picture on the wall, then moved on to an- 
other picture, the mess watching him without 
a word. When he came to the mantelpiece he 
shook his head and seemed distressed. A 
piece of plate representing a mounted hussar 
in full uniform caught his eye. He pointed to 
it, and then to the mantelpiece, with inquiry 
in his eyes. 

“What is it — oh, what is it?” said Little 
Mildred. Then, as a mother might speak to 
a child, “That is a horse — yes, a horse.” 

Very slowly came the answer, in a thick, 
passionless guttural : “Yes, I — have seen. 
But — where is the horse?” 

He could have heard the hearts of the mess 
beating as the men drew back to give the 
stranger full room in his wanderings. There 
was no question of calling the guard. 

Again he spoke, very slowly: “Where is 
our horse?” 


THE MAN WHO WAS 


189 


There is no saying what happened after 
that. There is but one horse in the White 
Hussars, and his portarit hangs outside the 
door of the mess-room. He is the piebald 
drum-horse, the king of the regimental band, 
that served the regiment for seven-and-thirty 
years, and in the end was shot for old age. 
Half the mess tore the thing down from its 
place and thrust it into the man’s hands. He 
placed it above the mantelpiece; it clatered on 
the ledge, as his poor hands dropped it, and 
he staggered toward the bottom of the table, 
falling into Mildred’s chair. The band be- 
gan to play the “River of Years” waltz, and 
the laughter from the gardens came into the 
tobacco-scented mess-room. But nobody, 
even the youngest, was thinking of waltzes. 
They all spoke to one another something after 
this fashion: “The drum-horse hasn’t hung 
over the mantelpiece since ’67.” “How does 
he know?” “Mildred, go and speak to him 
again.” “Colonel, what are you going to 
do?” “Oh, dry up, and give the poor devil a 
chance to pull himself together!” “It isn’t 
possible, anyhow. The man’s a lunatic.” 

Little Mildred stood at the colonel’s side 
talking into his ear. “Will you be good 
enough to take your seats, please, gentle- 


190 


THE MAN WHO WAS 


men?” he said, and the mess dropped into the 
chairs. 

Only Dirkovitch’s seat, next to Little Mil- 
dred’s, was blank, and Little Mildred himself 
had found Hira Singh’s place. The wide- 
eyed mess-sergeant filled the glasses in dead 
silence. Once more the colonel rose, but his 
hand shook, and the port spilled on the table 
as he looked straight at the man in Little Mil- 
dred’s chair and said, hoarsely: “Mr. Vice, 
the Queen.” There was a little pause, but the 
man sprung to his feet and answered, without 
hesitation: “The Queen, God bless her!” and 
as he emptied the thin glass he snapped the 
shank between his fingers. 

Long and long ago, when the Empress of 
India was a young woman, and there were 
no unclean ideals in the land, it was the cus- 
tom in a few messes to drink the queen’s toast 
in broken glass, to the huge delight of the 
mess contractors. The custom is now dead, 
because there is nothing to break anything 
for, except now and again the word of a gov- 
ernment, and that has been broken already. 

“That settles it,” said the colonel, with a 
gasp. “He’s not a sergeant. What in the 
world is he?” 

The entire mess echoed the word, and the 


THE MAN WHO WAS 191 

volley of questions would have scared any 
man. Small wonder that the ragged, filthy 
invader could only smile and shake his head. 

From under the table, calm and smiling ur- 
banely, rose Dirkovitch, who had been roused 
from healthful slumber by feet upon his body. 
By the side of the man he rose, and the man 
shrieked and groveled at his feet. It was a 
horrible sight, coming so swiftly upon the 
pride and glory of the toast that had brought 
the strayed wits together. 

Dirkovitch made no offer to raise him, but 
Little Mildred heaved him up in an instant. 
It is not good that a gentleman who can an- 
swer to the queen’s toast should lie at the feet 
of a subaltern of Cossacks. 

The hasty action tore the wretch’s upper 
clothing nearly to the waist, and his body was 
seamed with dry black scars. There is only 
one weapon in the world that cuts in parallel 
lines, and it is neither the cane nor the cat. 
Dirkovitch saw the marks, and the pupils of 
his eyes dilated — also, his face changed. He 
said something that sounded like “Shto ve 
takete” ; and the man, fawning, answered, 
“Chetyre.” 

“What’s that?” said everybody together. 

“His number. That is number four, you 


192 


THE MAN WHO WAS 


know.” Dirkovitch spoke very thickly. 

“What has a queen’s officer to do with a 
qualified number?” said the colonel, and there 
rose an unpleasant growl round the table. 

“How can I tell?” said the affable Oriental, 
with a sweet smile. “He is a — how you have 
it? — escape — runaway, from over there.” 

He nodded toward the darkness of the 
night. 

“Speak to him, if he’ll answer you, and 
speak to him gently,” said Little Mildred, set- 
tling the man in the chair. It seemed most 
improper to all present that Dirkovitch should 
sip brandy as he talked in purring, spitting 
Russian to the creature who answered so 
feebly and with such evident dread. But 
since Dirkovitch appeared to understand, no 
man said a word. They breathed heavily, 
leaning forward in the long gaps of the con- 
versation. The next time that they have 
no engagements on hand the White Hussars 
intend to go to St. Petersburg and learn Rus- 
sian. 

“He does not know how many years ago,” 
said Dirkovitch, facing the mess, “but he 
says it was very long ago, in a war. I think 
that there was an accident. He says he was 
of this glorious and distinguished regiment 
in the war.” 


THE MAN WHO WAS 


193 


“The rolls! The rolls! Holmer, get the 
rolls !” said Little Mildred, and the adjutant 
dashed off bareheaded to the orderly-room 
where the rolls of the regiment were kept. 
He returned just in time to hear Dirl ovitch 
conclude: “Therefore I am most sorry to say 
there was an accident, which would have been 
reparable if he had apologized to that our 
colonel, which he had insulted.” 

Another growl, which the colonel tried to 
beat down. The mess was in no mood to 
weigh insults to Russian colonels just then. 

“He does not remember, but I think that 
there was an accident, and so he was not ex- 
changed among the prisoners, but he was sent 
to another place — how do you say ? — the coun- 
try. So , he says, he came here. He does not 
know how he came. Eh? He was at Chep- 
any” — the man caught the word, nodded, and 
shivered — “at Zhigansk and Irkutsk. I can- 
not understand how he escaped. He says, too, 
that he was in the forests for many years, 
but how many years he has forgotten — that 
with many things. It was an accident; done 
because he did not apologize to that our col- 
onel. Ah!” 

Instead of echoing Dirkovitch’s sigh of re- 
gret, it is sad to record that the White Hus- 


194 


THE MAN WHO WAS 


sars livelily exhibited unchristian delight and 
other emotions, hardly restrained by their 
sense of hospitality. Holmer flung the frayed 
and yellow regimental rolls on the table, and 
the men flung themselves atop of these. 

“Steady! Fifty-six — fifty-five — fifty- 
four,” said Holmer. “Here we are. ‘Lieu- 
tenant Austin Limmason — missing ,’ That 
was before Sebastopol. What an infernal 
shame! Insulted one of their colonels, and 
was quietly shipped off. Thirty years of his 
life wiped out.” 

“But he never apologized. Said he’d see 
him — first, ’’chorused the mess. 

“Poor devil! I suppose he never had the 
chance afterward. How did he come here?” 
said the colonel. 

The dingy heap in the chair could give no 
answer. 

“Do you know who you are ?” 

It laughed weakly. 

“Do you know that you are Limmason — 
Lieutenant Limmason, of the White Hus- 
sars?” 

Swift as a shot came the answer, in a 
slightly surprised tone: “Yes, I’m Limmason, 
of course.” The light died out in his eyes, and 
he collapsed afresh, watching every motion 


THE MAN WHO WAS 


195 


of Dirkovitch with terror. A flight from Si- 
beria may fix a few elementary facts in the 
mind, but it does not lead to continuity of 
thought. The man could not explain how, 
like a homing pigeon, he had found his way 
to his own old mess again. Of what he had 
suffered or seen he knew nothing. He cringed 
before Dirkovitch as instinctively as he had 
pressed the spring of the candlestick, sought 
the picture of the drum-horse, and answered 
to the queen’s toast. The rest was a blank 
that the dreaded Russian tongue could only 
in part remove. His head bowed on his 
breast, and he giggled and cowered alter- 
nately. 

The devil that lived in the brandy prompted 
Dirkovitch at this extremely inopportune mo- 
ment to make a speech. He rose, swaying 
slightly, gripped the table edge, while his eyes 
glowed like opals, and began: 

“Fellow-soldiers glorious — true friends and 
hospitables. It was an accident, and deplora- 
ble — most deplorable.” Here he smiled 
sweetly all round the mess. “But you will 
think of this little — little thing. So little, 
is it not? The czar! Posh! I slap my fin- 
gers — I snap my fingers at him. Do I be- 
lieve in him? No! But the Slav who has 
done nothing, him I believe. Seventy — how 


196 


THE MAN WHO WAS 


much? — millions that have done nothing — 
not one thing. Napoleon was an episode.” 
He banged a hand on the table. “Hear you, 
old peoples, we have done nothing in the 
world — out here. All our work is to do : and 
it shall be done, old peoples. Get away!” 
He waved his hand imperiously, and pointed 
to the man. “You see him. He is not good 
to see. He was just one little — oh, so little — 
accident, that no one remembered. Now he 
is That. So will you be, brother-soldiers so 
brave — so will you be. But you will never 
come back. You will all go where he is gone, 
or” — he pointed to the great coffin shadow on 
the ceiling, and muttered, “Seventy millions — 
get away, you old people,” fell asleep. 

“Sweet, and to the point,” said Little Mil- 
dred. “What’s the use of getting wroth? 
Let’s make the poor devil comfortable.” 

But that was a matter suddenly and swiftly 
taken from the loving hands of the White 
Hussars. The lieutenant had returned only 
to go away again three days later, when the 
wail of the “Dead March” and the tramp of 
the squadrons told the wondering station, that 
saw no gap in the table, an officer of the regi- 
ment had resigned his new found commis- 
sion. 

And Dirkovitch — bland, supple, and al- 
ways genial — went away too by a night train. 


THE MAN WHO WAS 


197 


Little Mildred and another saw him off, for 
he was the guest of the mess, and even had he 
smitten the colonel with the open hand, the 
law of the mess allowed no relaxation of hos- 
pitality. 

“Good-bye, Dirkovitch, and a pleasant jour- 
ney,” said little Mildred. 

“Au revoir , my true friends,” said the Rus- 
sian. 

“Indeed! But we thought you were going 
home?” 

“Yes; but I will come again. My friends, 
is that road shut?” He pointed to where the 
north star burned over the Khyber Pass. 

“By Jove! I forgot. Of course. Happy 
to meet you, old man, any time you like. Got 
everything you want — cheroots, ice, bed- 
ding? That’s all right. Well, au revoir , Dir- 
kovitch.” 

“Um,” said the other man, as the tail- 
lights of the train grew small. “Of — all — 
the — unmitigated’ ’ — 

Little Mildred answered nothing, but 
watched the north star, and hummed a selec- 
tion from a recent burlesque that had much 
delighted the White Hussars. It ran: 

“I’m sorry for Mr. Bluebeard, 

I’m sorry to cause him pain; 

But a terrible spree there’s sure to be 
When he comes back again.” 












• . 


/ 










A CONFERENCE OF THE POWERS 


I 


A CONFERENCE OF THE POWERS 


“Life liveth best in life, and doth not roam 
To other realms if all be well at home. 

‘Solid as ocean foam/ quoth ocean foam/’ 

HE room was blue with the smoke of 



A three pipes and a cigar. The leave sea- 
son had opened in India, and the first-fruits 
on the English side of the water were “Tick” 
Boileau, of the Forty-fifth Bengal Cavalry, 
who called on me after three years’ absence 
to discuss old things which had happened. 
Fate, who always does her work handsomely, 
sent up the same staircase within the same hour 
the Infant, fresh from Upper Burmah, and he 
and Boileau, looking out of my window, saw 
walking in the street one Nevin, late in a 
Ghoorka regiment and the Black Mountain 
expedition. They yelled to him to come up, 
and the whole street was aware that they de- 
sired him to come up; and he came up, and 
there followed pandemonium, because we had 
foregathered from the ends of the earth, and 
three of us were on a holiday, and none of 
us was twenty-five, and all the delights of all 
London lay waiting our pleasure. 


201 


/ 


202 


A CONFERENCE 


Boileau took the only other chair; and the 
Infant, by right of his bulk, the sofa; and 
Nevin, being a little man, sat cross-legged on 
the top of the revolving book-case; and we 
all said: “Who’d ha’ thought it?” and “What 
are you doing here?” till speculation was ex- 
hausted, and the talk went over to inevitable 
“shop.” Boileau was full of a great scheme 
for securing military attacheship at St. Peters- 
burg; Nevin had hopes of the Staff College; 
and the Infant had been moving heaven and 
earth and the Horse Guards for a commission 
in the Egyptian army. 

“What’s the use o’ that?” said Nevin, twirl- 
ing round on the book-case. 

“Oh, heaps! Course if you get stuck with a 
Fellaheen regiment, you’re sold; but if you 
are appointed to a Soudanese lot, you’re in 
clover. They are first-class fighting men, and 
just think of the eligible central position of 
Egypt in the next row !” 

This was putting the match to the maga- 
zine. We all began to explain the Central- 
Asian question off-hand, flinging army corps 
from the Helmund to Cashmir with more than 
Russian recklessness. Each of the boys made 
for himself a war to his own liking, and when 
he had settled all the details of Armageddon, 


OF THE POWERS 


203 


killed all our senior officers, handled a divi- 
sion apiece, and nearly torn the atlas in two 
in attempts to explain our theories, Boileau 
needs must lift up his voice above the 

clamor and cry: “ Anyhow, it’ll be the of 

a row!” in tones that carried conviction far 
down the staircase. 

Entered unperceived in the smoke William 
the Silent. “Gen’elmen to see you, sir,” said 
he, and disappeared, leaving in his stead none 
other than Mr. Eustace Cleever. William 
would have introduced the dragon of Want- 
ley with equal disregard of present company. 

“I — I beg your pardon ! I didn’t know 
that there was anybody — with you. I” — 

But it was not seemly to allow Mr. Cleever 
to depart, for he was a great man. The boys 
remained where they were, because any move- 
ment would block the little room. Only when 
they saw his grey hairs they stood up on their 
feet, and when the Infant caught the name, 
he said: “Are you — did you write that book 
called ‘As it was in the Beginning’?” 

Mr. Cleever admitted that he had written 
the book. 

“Then — then I don’t know how to thank 
you, sir,” said the Infant, flushing pink. “I was 
brought up in the country you wrote about. 


204 


A CONFERENCE 


All my people live there, and I read the book in 
camp out in Burmah on the Hlinedatalone, 
and I knew every stick and stone, and the 
dialect, too; and, by Jove! it was just like 
being at home and hearing the country people 
talk. Nevin, you know/ As it was in the Be- 
ginning’? So does Ti — Boileau.” 

Mr. Cleever has tasted as much praise, pub- 
lic and private, as one man may safely swal- 
low, but it seemed to me that the outspoken 
admiration in the Infant’s eyes and the little 
stir in the little company came home to him 
very nearly indeed. 

“Won’t you take the sofa?” said the Infant. 
“I’ll sit on Boileau’s chair, and” — Here he 
looked at me to spur me to my duties as a 
host, but I was watching the novelist’s face. 
Cleever had not the least intention of going 
away, but settled himself on the sofa. Fol- 
lowing the first great law of the army, which 
says : “All property is common except money, 
and you’ve only got to ask the next man for 
that,” the Infant offered tobacco and drink. 
It was the least he could do, but not four col- 
umns of the finest review in the world held 
half as much appreciation and reverence as 
the Infant’s simple: “Say when, sir,” above 
the long glass. 


OF THE POWERS 


205 


Cleever said “when/’ and more thereto, for 
he was a golden talker, and he sat in the midst 
of hero-worship devoid of all taint of self- 
interest. The boys asked him of the birth of 
his book, and whether it was hard to write, 
and how his notions came to him, and he an- 
swered with the same absolute simplicity as 
he was questioned. His big eyes twinkled, he 
dug his long, thin hands into his grey beard, 
and tugged it as he grew animated and 
dropped little by little from the peculiar pinch- 
ing of the broader vowels — the indefinable 
“euh” that runs through the speech of the pun- 
dit caste — and the elaborate choice of words 
to freely mouthed ows and ois, and for him, at 
least, unfettered colloquialisms. He could not 
altogether understand the boys who hung 
upon his words so reverently. The line of the 
chin-strap that still showed white and un- 
tanned on cheek-bone and jaw, the steadfast 
young eyes puckered at the corners of the lids 
with much staring through red-hot sunshine, 
the deep, troubled breathing and the curious 
crisp, curt speech seemed to puzzle him 
equally. He could create men and women, 
and send them to the uttermost ends of the 
earth to help, delight, and comfort; he knew 
every mood of the fields, and could interpret 


206 


A CONFERENCE 


them to the cities, and he knew the hearts of 
many in the city and country, but he had hardly 
in forty years come into contact with the thing 
which is called a Subaltern of the Line. He 
told the boys this. 

“Well, how should you?” said the Infant. 
“You — you’re quite different, y’ see, sir.” 

The Infant expressed his ideas in his tone 
rather than his words, and Cleever understood 
the compliments. 

“We’re only subs,” said Nevin, “and we 
aren’t exactly the sort of men you’d meet 
much in your life, I s’pose.” 

“That’s true,” said Cleever. “I live chiefly 
among those who write and paint and sculp 
and so forth. We have our own talk and our 
own interests, and the outer world doesn’t 
trouble us much.” 

“That must be awfully jolly,” said Boileau, 
at a venture. “We have our own shop, too, 
but ’tisn’t half as interesting as yours, of 
course. You know all the men who’ve ever 
done anything, and we only knock about from 
place to place, and we do nothing.” 

“The army’s a very lazy profession, if you 
choose to make it so,” said Nevin. “When 
there’s nothing going on, there is nothing go- 
ing on, and you lie up.” 


OF THE POWERS 


207 


“Or try to get a billet somewhere so as to be 
ready for the next show,” said the Infant, with 
a chuckle. 

“To me,” said Cleever softly, “the whole 
idea of warfare seems so foreign and unnat- 
ural — so essentially vulgar, if I may say so — 
that I can hardly appreciate your sensations. 
Of course, though, any change from idling in 
garrison towns must be a godsend to you.” 

Like not a few home-staying Englishmen, 
Cleever believed that the newspaper phrase he 
quoted covered the whole duty of the army, 
whose toil enabled him to enjoy his many- 
sided life in peace. The remark was not a 
happy one, for Boileau had just come off the 
Indian frontier, the Infant had been on the 
war path for nearly eighteen months, and the 
little red man, Nevin, two months before had 
been sleeping under the stars at the peril of his 
life. But none of them tried to explain till I 
ventured to point out that they had all seen 
service, and were not used to idling. Cleever 
took in the idea slowly. 

“Seen service?” said he. Then, as a child 
might ask, “Tell me — tell me everything about 
everything.” 

“How do you mean, sir?” said the Infant, 
delighted at being directly appealed to by the 
great man. 


208 


A CONFERENCE 


“Good heavens! how am I to make you 
understand if you can’t see? In the first place, 
what is your age ?” 

“Twenty-three next July,” said the Infant, 
promptly. 

Cleever questioned the others with his eyes. 

“I’m twenty-four,” said Nevin. 

“I’m twenty-two,” said Boileau. 

“And you’ve all seen service ?” 

“We’ve all knocked about a little bit, sir, 
but the Infant’s the war-worn veteran. He’s 
had two years’ work in Upper Burmah,” said 
Nevin. 

“When you say work, what do you mean, 
you extraordinary creatures?” 

“Explain it, Infant,” said Nevin. 

“Oh, keeping things in order generally, and 
running about after little dakus > — that’s Da- 
coits — and so on. There’s nothing to ex- 
plain.” 

“Make that young leviathan speak,” said 
Cleever, impatiently. 

“How can he speak?” said I. “He’s done 
the work. The two don’t go together. But, 
Infant, you are requested to bukh” 

“What about? I’ll try.” 

“Bukh about a daur. You’ve been on heaps 
of ’em,” said Nevin. 


OF THE POWERS 


209 


“What in the world does that mean? Has 
the army a language of its own?” 

The Infant turned very red. He was afraid 
he was being laughed at, and he detested talk- 
ing before outsiders ; but it was the author of 
“As it was in the Beginning” who waited. 

“IPs all so new to me,” pleaded Cleever. 
“And — you said you liked my book.” 

This was a direct appeal that the Infant 
could understand. He began, rather Hur- 
riedly, with “Pull me up, sir, if I say anything 
you don’t follow. ’Bout six months before 
I took my leave out of Burmah I was on the 
Hlinedatalone up near the Shan states with 
sixty Tommies — private soldiers, that is — and 
another subaltern, a year senior to me. The 
Burmese business was a subaltern war, and 
our forces were split up into little detach- 
ments, all running about the country and try- 
ing to keep the Dacoits quiet. The Dacoits 
were having a first-class time, y’ know — filling 
women up with kerosene and setting ’em alight, 
and burning villages, and crucifying people.” 

The wonder in Eustace Cleever’s eyes deep- 
ened. He disbelieved wholly in a book which 
describes crucifixion at length, and he could 
not quite realize that the custom still existed. 

“Have you ever seen a crucifixion?” said 

he. 


210 


A CONFERENCE 


“Of course not. Shouldn’t have allowed it if 
I had. But I’ve seen the corpses. The Da- 
coits had a nice trick of sending a crucified 
corpse down the river on a raft, just to show 
they were keeping their tail up and en- 
joying themselves. Well, that was the kind of 
people I had to deal with.” 

“Alone ?” said Cleever. Solitude of the soul 
he knew — none better; but he had never been 
ten miles away from his fellow-men in his 
life. 

“I had my men, but the rest of it was pretty 
much alone. The nearest military post that 
could give me orders was fifteen miles away, 
and we used to heliograph to them, and they 
used to give us orders same way. Too many 
orders.” 

“Who was your C. O. ?” said Boileau. 

“Bounderby. Major. Pukka Bounderby. 
More Bounder than pukka. He went out up 
Bhamo way. Shot or cut down last year,” 
said the Infant. 

“What mean these interludes in a strange 
tongue?” said Cleever to me. 

“Professional information, like the Missis- 
sippi pilots’ talk. He did not approve of his 
major, who has since died a violent death,” 
said I. “Go on, Infant.” 


OF THE POWERS 


2 II 


“Far too many orders. You couldn’t take 
the Tommies out for a two-days’ daur — that 
means expedition, sir — without being blown 
up for not asking leave. And the whole coun- 
try was humming with Dacoits. I used to 
send out spies and act on their information. 
As soon as a man came in and told me of a 
gang in hiding, I’d take thirty men, with some 
grub, and go out and look for them, while the 
other subaltern lay doggo in camp.” 

“Lay? Pardon me, how did he lie?” said 
Cleever. 

“Lay doggo. Lay quiet with the thirty 
other men. When I came back, he’d take out 
his half of the command, and have a good 
time of his own.” 

“Who was he?” said Boileau. 

“Carter-Deecy, of the Aurangabadis. Good 
chap, but too zubberdusty , and went bokhar 
four days out of seven. He’s gone out too. 
Don’t interrupt a man.” 

Cleever looked helplessly at me. 

“The other subaltern,” I translate, swiftly, 
“came from a native regiment and was over- 
bearing in his demeanor. He suffered much 
from the fever of the country, and is now 
dead. Go on, Infant.” 

“After a bit we got into trouble for using the 


212 


A CONFERENCE 


men on frivolous occasions, and so I used to 
put my signaler under arrest to prevent him 
reading the helio orders. Then I’d go out, 
and leave a message to be sent an hour after I 
got clear of the camp; something like this: 
‘Received important information; start in an 
hour, unless countermanded.’ If I was or- 
dered back, it didn’t much matter. I swore 
that the C. O.’s watch was wrong, or some- 
thing, when I came back. The Tommies en- 
joyed the fun, and — oh, yes — there was one 
Tommy who was the bard of the detachment. 
He used to make up verses on everything that 
happened.” 

“What sort of verses?” said Cleever 

“Lovely verses; and the Tommies used to 
sing ’em. There was one song with a chorus, 
and it said something like this.” The Infant 
dropped into the barrack-room twang : 

“ ‘Theebau, the Burmah king, did a very foolish thing 
When ’e mustered ’ostile forces in ar-rai. 

’E littul thought that we, from far across, the sea, 
Would send our armies up to Mandalai !’ ” 

“Oh, gorgeous!” said Cleever. “And how 
magnificently direct ! The notion of a regi- 
mental bard is new to me. It’s epic.” 

“He was awf’ly popular with the men,” 


OF THE POWERS 


213 


said the Infant. “He had them all down in 
rhyme as soon as ever they had done anything. 
He was a great bard. He was always on time 
with a eulogy when he picked up a Boh — that’s 
a leader of Dacoits.” 

“How did you pick him up?” said Cleever. 

“Oh, shot him if he wouldn’t surrender.” 

“You! Have you shot a man?” 

There was a subdued chuckle from all three, 
and it dawned on the questioner that one ex- 
perience in life which was denied to himself — 
and he weighed the souls of men in a balance 
— had been shared by three very young gen- 
tlemen of engaging appearance. He turned 
round on Nevin, who had climbed to the top 
of the book-case and was sitting cross-legged 
as before. 

“And have you, too ?” 

“And have you , too ?” 

“Think so,” said Nevin, sweetly. “In the 
Black Mountain, sir. He was rolling cliffs on 
to my half-company and spoiling our forma- 
tion. I took a rifle from a man and brought 
him down at a second shot.” 

“Good heavens ! And how did you feel af- 
terward ?” 

“Thirsty. I wanted a smoke, too.” 

Cleever looked at Boileau, the youngest. 


214 


A CONFERENCE 


Surely his hands were guiltless of blood. Boi- 
leau shook his head and laughed. “Go on, 
Infant,” said he. 

“And you, too?” said Cleever. 

“Fancy so. It was a case of cut — cut or be 
cut — with me, so I cut at one. I couldn’t do 
any more, sir,” said Boileau. 

Cleever looked as though he would like to 
ask many questions, but the Infant swept on in 
the full tide of his tale. 

“Well, we were called insubordinate young 
whelps at last, and strictly forbidden to take 
the Tommies out any more without orders. I 
wasn’t sorry, because Tommy is such an exact- 
ing sort of creature, though he works beauti- 
fully. He wants to live as though he were in 
barracks all the time. I was grubbing on fowls 
and boiled corn, but the Tommies wanted their 
pound of fresh meat, and their half ounce of 
this, and their two ounces of t’other thing, and 
they used to come to me and badger me for 
plug tobacco when we were four days in jun- 
gle! I said: T can get you Burmah tobacco, 
but I don’t keep a canteen up my sleeve.’ They 
couldn’t see it. They wanted all the luxuries 
of the season, confound ’em!” 

“You were alone when you were dealing 
with these men?” said Cleever, watching the 


OF THE POWERS 


215 


Infant’s face under the palm of his hand. He 
was receiving new ideas, and they seemed to 
trouble him. 

“Of course. Unless you count the mosqui- 
toes. They were nearly as big as the men. 
After I had to lie doggo I began to look for 
something to do, and I was great pals with a 
man called Hicksey, in the Burmah police' — 
the best man that ever stepped on earth; a 
first-class man.” 

Cleever nodded applause. He knew some- 
thing of enthusiasm. 

“Hicksey and I were as thick as thieves. He 
had some Burmah mounted police — nippy lit- 
tle chaps, armed with sword and Snider car- 
bine. They rode punchy Burmah ponies, with 
string stirrups, red cloth saddles, and red bell- 
rope headstalls. Hicksey used to lend me six 
or eight of them when I asked him — nippy lit- 
tle devils, keen as mustard. But they told 
their wives too much, and all my plans got 
known, till I learned to give false marching 
orders over night, and take the men to quite a 
different village in the morning. Then we 
used to catch the simple dakus before break- 
fast, and make them very sick. It’s a ghastly 
country on the Hlinedatalone ; all bamboo jun- 
gle, with paths about four feet wide winding 


21 6 


A CONFERENCE 


through it. The dakus knew all the paths, and 
used to pot at us as we came round a corner; 
but the mounted police knew the paths as well 
as the dakus , and we used to go stalking ’em 
in and out among the paths. Once we flushed 
’em — the men on the ponies had the pull of 
the man on foot. We held all the country ab- 
solutely quiet for ten miles round in about a 
month. Then we took Boh Na-ghee — Hick- 
sey and I and the civil officer. That was a 
lark!” 

“I think I am beginning to understand a lit- 
tle,” said Cleever. “It was a pleasure to you 
to administer and fight, and so on.” 

“Rather. There’s nothing nicer than a sat- 
isfactory little expedition, when you find all 
your plans fit together and your conformations 
teek — correct, you know — and the whole sub- 
chiz — I mean when everything works out like 
formulae on a blackboard. Hicksey had all the 
information about the Boh. He had been 
burning villages and murdering people right 
and left, and cutting up government convoys, 
and all that. He was lying doggo in a village 
about fifteen miles off, waiting to get a fresh 
gang together. So we arranged to take thirty 
mounted police, and turn him out before he 
could plunder into the newly settled villages. 


OF THE POWERS 


217 


At the last minute the civil officer in our part 
of the world thought he’d assist in the per- 
formance.” 

“Who was he?” said Nevin. 

“His name was Dennis,” said the Infant, 
slowly; “and we’ll let it stay so. He’s a better 
man now than he was then.” 

“But how old was the civil power?” said 
Cleever. “The situation is developing itself.” 
Then, in his beard: “Who are you, to judge 
men?” 

“He was about six-and-twenty,” said the 
Infant; “and he was awf’ly clever. He knew 
a lot of literary things, but I don’t think he 
was quite steady enough for Dacoit-hunting. 
We started over night for Boh Na-ghee’s vil- 
lage, and we got there just before the morning, 
without raising an alarm. Dennis had turned 
out armed to the teeth — two revolvers, a car- 
bine, and all sorts of things. I was talking 
to Hicksey about posting our men, and Dennis 
edged his pony in between us and said : ‘What 
shall I do? What shall I do? Tell me what 
to do, you fellows.’ We didn’t take much 
notice, but his pony tried to bite me in the 
leg, and I said: Tull out a bit, old man, 
till we’ve settled the attack.’ He kept edging 
in, and fiddling with his reins and the revol- 


2l8 


A CONFERENCE 


vers, and saying: ‘Dear me! dear me! Oh, 
dear me! What do you think I’d better do?’ 
The man was in a blue funk and his teeth were 
chattering.” 

“I sympathize with the civil power,” said 
Cleever. “Continue, young Clive.” 

“The fun of it was that he was supposed 
to be our superior officer. Hicksey took a 
good look at him, and told him to attach 
himself to my party. Beastly mean of Hick- 
sey, that. The chap kept on edging in and 
bothering, instead of asking for some men 
and taking up his own position, till I got 
angry. The carbines began popping on the 
other side of the village. Then I said: ‘For 
God’s sake, be quiet, and sit down where 
you are! If you see anybody come out of the 
village, shoot at him.’ I knew he couldn’t 
hit a hayrick at a yard. Then I took my men 
over the garden wall — over the palisades, 
y’ know — somehow or other, and the fun be- 
gan. Hicksey had found the Boh in bed under 
a mosquito curtain, and he had taken a flying 
jump on to him.” 

“A flying jump!” said Cleever. “Is that 
also war?” 

“Yes,” said the Infant, now thoroughly 
warmed. “Don’t you know how you take a 


OF THE POWERS 


219 


flying jump on to a fellow’s head at school 
when he snores in the dormitory? The Boh 
was sleeping in a regular bedful of swords and 
pistols, and Hicksey came down a la Zazel 
through the netting, and the net got mixed 
up with the pistols and the Boh and Hicksey, 
and they all rolled on the floor together. I 
laughed till I couldn’t stand, and Hicksey 
was cursing me for not helping him, so I 
left him to fight it out, and went into the vil- 
lage. Our men were slashing about and firing, 
and so were the Dacoits, and in the thick of 
the mess some ass set fire to a house, and we 
all had to clear out. I froze on the nearest 
daku and ran to the palisade, shoving him 
in front of me. He wriggled clear and 
bounded over to the other side. I came after 
him, but when I had one leg on one side and 
one leg the other of the palisade, I saw 
that my friend had fallen flat on Dennis’s 
head. That man had never moved from 
where I left him. The two rolled on the 
ground together, and Dennis’s carbine went off 
and nearly shot me. The daku picked him- 
self up and ran, and Dennis heaved his car- 
bine after him, and it caught him on the back 
of his head and knocked him silly. You 
never saw anything so funny in your life. 


220 


A CONFERENCE 


I doubled up on the top of the palisade and 
hung there, yelling with laughter. But Den- 
nis began to weep like anything. ‘ Oh, I’ve 
killed a man !’ he said — ‘I’ve killed a man, and 
I shall never know another peaceful hour in my 
life! Is he dead? Oh, is he dead? Good 
God! I’ve killed a man!’ I came down and 
said : ‘Don’t be a fool !’ But he kept on 
shouting ‘Is he dead?’ till I could have kicked 
him. The daku was only knocked out of time 
with the carbine. He came to after a bit, and 
I said: ‘Are you hurt much?’ He grinned 
and said no. His chest was all cut with 
scrambling over the palisade. ‘The white 
man’s gun didn’t do that,’ he said. ‘I did that 
myself, and I knocked the white man over.’ 
Just like a Burman, wasn’t it? Dennis 
wouldn’t be happy at any price. He said: 
‘Tie up his wounds. He’ll bleed to death. 
Oh, my God, he’ll bleed to death!’ ‘Tie ’em 
up yourself,’ I said, ‘if you’re so anxious.’ ‘I 
can’t touch him,’ said Dennis, ‘but here’s my 
shirt.’ He took off his shirt, and he fixed his 
braces again over his bare shoulders. I ripped 
the shirt up and bandaged the Dacoit quite 
professionally. He was grinning at Dennis 
all the time ; and Dennis’s haversack was lying 
on the ground, bursting full of sandwiches. 


OF THE POWERS 


221 


Greedy hog! I took some and offered some 
to Dennis. ‘How can I eat?’ he said. ‘How 
can you ask me to eat? His very blood is 
on your hands, oh, God! and your eating my 
sandwiches!’ ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll give 
’em to the daku.” So I did, and the little 
chap was quite pleased, and wolfed ’em down 
like one o’clock.” 

Cleever brought his hand down on the table- 
cloth a thump that made the empty glasses 
dance. “That’s art,” he said. “Flat, flagrant 
mechanism. Don’t tell me what happened 
on the spot!” 

The pupils of the Infant’s eyes contracted 
to pin points. “I beg your pardon,” he said 
slowly and a little stiffly, “but I am telling this 
thing as it happened.” 

Cleever looked at him for a moment. “My 
fault entirely,” said he. “I should have 
known. Please go on.” 

“Oh, then Hicksey came out of what was 
left of the village with his prisoners and cap- 
tives all neatly tied up. Boh Na-ghee was 
first, and one of the villagers, as soon as he 
saw the old ruffian helpless, began kicking 
him quietly. The Boh stood it as long as 
he could, and then groaned, and we saw what 
was going on. Hicksey tied the villager up 


222 


A CONFERENCE 


and gave him half a dozen good ones to re- 
mind him to leave a prisoner alone. You 
should have seen the old Boh grin. Oh, but 
Hicksey was in a furious rage with every- 
body. He’d got a wipe over the elbow that 
had tickled up his funny-bone, and he was 
simply rabid with me for not having helped 
him with the Boh and the mosquito net. I 
had to explain that I couldn’t do anything. 

If you’d seen ’em both tangled up together 
on the floor, like a blaspheming cocoon, you’d 
have laughed for a week. Hicksey swore that 
the only decent man of his acquaintance was 
the Boh, and all the way back to camp Hicksey 
was talking to him, and the Boh was grumb- 
ling about the soreness of his bones. When 
we got home and had had a bath, the Boh 
wanted to know when he was going to be 
hanged. Hicksey said he couldn’t oblige him 
on the spot, but had to send him to Ran- 
goon. The Boh went down on his knees and 
reeled off a catalogue of his crimes — he ought 
to have been hanged seventeen times over by ' 
his own confession — and implored Hicksey 
to settle the business out of hand. Tf I’m 
sent to Rangoon/ said he, ‘they’ll keep me 
in jail all my life, and that is a death every 
time the sun gets up or the wind blows.’ But 


OF THE POWERS 


223 


we had to send him to Rangoon; and, of 
course, he was let off down there and given 
penal servitude for life. When I came to 
Rangoon I went over the jail — I had helped 
to fill it, y’ know — and the old Boh was there 
and recognized me at once. He begged for 
some opium first, and I tried to get him some ; 
but that was against the rules. Then he asked 
me to have his sentence changed to death, 
because he was afraid of being sent to the 
Andamans. I couldn’t do that, either; but 
I tried to cheer him, and told him how the 
row was going up country. And the last 
thing he said was: ‘Give my compliments to 
the fat white man who jumped on me. If I’d 
been awake I’d have killed him.’ I wrote 
that to Hicksey next mail, and — and that’s 
all. I’m ’fraid I’ve been gassing awf’ly, sir.” 

Cleever said nothing for a long time. The 
Infant looked uncomfortable. He feared that, 
misled by enthusiasm, he had filled up the 
novelist’s time with unprofitable recital of triv- 
ial anecdotes. 

Then said Cleever: “I can’t understand 
it. Why should you have seen and done all 
these things before you have cut your wis- 
dom-teeth ?” 

“Don’t know,” said the Infant, apologeti- 


224 


A CONFERENCE 


cally. “I haven’t seen much — only Burmese 
jungle.” 

“And dead men and war and power and 
responsibility,” said Cleever, under his breath. 
“You won’t have any sensations left at thirty 
if you go on as you have done. But I want 
to hear more tales — more tales.” He seemed 
to forget that even subalterns might have 
engagements of their own. 

“We’re thinking of dining out somewhere, 
the lot of us, and going on to the Empire 
afterward,” said Nevin, with hesitation. He 
did not like to ask Cleever to come too. The 
invitation might be regarded as “cheek.” And 
Cleever, anxious not to wag a grey beard un- 
bidden among boys at large, said nothing on 
his side. 

Boileau solved the little difficulty by blurt- 
ing out: “Won’t you come too, sir?” 

Cleever almost shouted “Yes,” and while 
he was being helped into his coat, continued 
to murmur “Good heavens!” at intervals, in 
a manner that the boys could not understand. 

“I don’t think I’ve been to the Empire in 
my life,” said he. “But, good heavens! what 
is my life, after all? Let us go back.” 

So they went out with Eustace Cleever, 
and I sulked at home, because the boys had 


OF THE POWERS 


225 


come to see me, but had gone over to the 
better man, which was humiliating. They 
packed him into a cab with utmost reverence, 
for was he not the author of “As it was in the 
Beginning,” and a person in whose company 
it was an honor to go abroad? From all I 
gathered later, he had taken no less interest 
in the performance before him than in the 
boys’ conversation, and they protested with 
emphasis that he was “as good a man as they 
make, knew what a man was driving at almost 
before he said it, and yet he’s so dashed 
simple about things any man knows.” That 
was one of many comments made afterward. 

At midnight they returned, announcing that 
they were highly respectable gondoliers, and 
that oysters and stout were what they chiefly 
needed. The eminent novelist was still with 
them, and I think he was calling them by 
their shorter names. I am certain that he 
said he had been moving in worlds not real- 
ized, and that they had shown him the Em- 
pire in a new light. Still sore at recent ne- 
glect, I answered shortly: “Thank Heaven, 
we have within the land ten thousand as good 
as they!” and when Cleever departed, asked 
him what he thought of things generally. 

He replied with another quotation, to the 


226 


A CONFERENCE 


effect that though singing was a remarkable 
fine performance, I was to be quite sure that 
few lips would be moved to song if they could 
find a sufficiency of kissing. 

Whereat I understood that Eustace Cleever, 
decorator and color man in words, was blas- 
pheming his own art, and that he would be 
sorry for this in the morning. 


WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 



WITHOUT BENEFIT OF CLERGY 


££t*UT if it be a girl?” 

-D “Lord of my life, it cannot be! I 
have prayed for so many nights, and sent 
gifts to Sheikh Badl’s shrine so often, that 
I know God will give us a son — a man-child 
that shall grow into a man.#. Think of this 
and be glad. My mother shall be his mother 
till I can take him again, and the mullah of 
the Pattan Mosque shall cast his nativity — 
God send he be born in an auspicious hour! — 
and then, and then thou wilt never weary of 
me, thy slave.” 

“Since when hast thou been a slave, my 
queen ?” 

“Since the beginning — till this mercy came 
to me. How could I be sure of thy love when 
I knew that I had been bought with silver ?” 

“Nay, that was the dowry. I paid it to 
thy mother.” 

“And she has buried it, and sits upon it 
all day long like a hen. What talk is yours 
of dowry? I was bought as though I had 
been a Lucknow dancing-girl instead of a 
child.” 


229 


230 


WITHOUT BENEFIT 


“Art thou sorry for the sale?” 

“I have sorrowed; but to-day I am glad. 
Thou wilt never cease to love me now? An- 
swer, my king.” 

“Never — never. No.” 

“Not even though the mem-log — the white 
women of thy own blood — love thee? And 
remember, I have watched them driving in 
the evening; they are very fair.” 

“I have seen fire-balloons by the hundred, 
I have seen the moon, and — then I saw no 
more fire-balloons.” 

Ameera clapped her hands and laughed. 
“Very good talk,” she said. Then, with an 
assumption of great stateliness : “It is 
enough. Thou hast my permission to depart 
— if thou wilt.” 

The man did not move. He was sitting on 
a low red-lacquered couch in a room furnished 
only with a blue-and-white floor-cloth, some 
rugs, and a very complete collection of native 
cushions. At his feet sat a woman of sixteen, 
and she was all but all in the world in his eyes. 
By every rule and law she should have been 
otherwise, for he was an Englishman and 
she a Mussulman’s daughter, bought two 
years before from her mother, who, being 
left without money, would have sold Ameera, 


OF CLERGY 


231 


shrieking, to the Prince of Darkness, if the 
price had been sufficient. 

It was a contract entered into with a light 
heart. But even before the girl had reached 
her bloom she came to fill the greater portion 
of John Holden’s life. For her and the with- 
ered hag her mother he had taken a little 
house overlooking the great red-walled city, 
and found, when the marigolds had sprung up 
by the well in the courtyard, and Ameera had 
established herself according to her own ideas 
of comfort, and her mother had ceased 
grumbling at the inadequacy of the cooking- 
places, the distance from the daily market, and 
matters of housekeeping in general, that the 
house was to him his home. Any one could 
enter his bachelor’s bungalow by day or night, 
and the life that he led there was an unlovely 
one. In the house in the city his feet only 
could pass beyond the outer court-yard to the 
women’s rooms; and when the big wooden 
gate was bolted behind him he was king in his 
own territory, with Ameera for queen. And 
there was going to be added to this kingdom a 
third person, whose arrival Holden felt in- 
clined to resent. It interfered with his perfect 
happiness. It disarranged the orderly peace 
of the house that was his own. But Ameera 


WITHOUT BENEFIT 


232 

was wild with delight at the thought of it, 
and her mother not less so. The love of a 
man, and particularly a white man, was at 
the best an inconstant affair, but it might, 
both women argued, be held fast by a baby’s 
hands. “And then,” Ameera would always 
say — “then he will never care for the white 
mem-log. I hate them all — I hate them all !” 

“He will go back to his own people in time,” 
said the mother, “but, by the blessing of God, 
that time is yet afar off.” 

Holden sat silent on the couch, thinking 
of the future, and his thoughts were not pleas- 
ant. The drawbacks of a double life are 
manifold. The government, with singular 
care, had ordered him out of the station for 
a fortnight on special duty, in the place of a 
man who was watching by the bedside of a 
sick wife. The verbal notification of the 
transfer had been edged by a cheerful remark 
that Holden ought to think himself lucky in 
being a bachelor and a free man. He came 
to break the news to Ameera. 

“It is not good,” she said slowly, “but it 
is not all bad. There is my mother here, and 
no harm will come to me — unless, indeed, I 
die of pure joy. Go thou to thy work, and 
think no troublesome thoughts. When the 


OF CLERGY 


233 


days are done, I believe . . . nay, I am sure. 
And — then I shall lay him in thy arms, and 
thou wilt love me forever. The train goes 
to-night — at midnight, is it not ? Go now, and 
do not let thy heart be heavy by cause of me. 
But thou wilt not delay in returning! Thou 
wilt not stay on the road to talk to the bold 
white mem-log ! Come back to me swiftly, 
my life i” 

As he left the court-yard to reach his horse, 
that was tethered to the gate-post, Holden 
spoke to the white-haired old watchman who 
guarded the house, and bid him under certain 
contingencies dispatch the filled-up telegraph 
form that Holden gave him. It was all that 
could be done, and, with the sensations of a 
man who has attended his own funeral, Hold- 
en went away by the night mail to his exile. 
Every hour of the day he dreaded the arrival 
of the telegram, and every hour of the night he 
pictured to himself the death of Ameera. In 
consequence, his work for the state was not of 
first-rate quality, nor was his temper toward 
his colleagues of the most amiable. The fort- 
night ended without a sign from his home, 
and, torn to pieces by his anxieties, Holden 
returned to be swallowed up for two precious 
hours by a dinner at the club, wherein he 


234 


WITHOUT BENEFIT 


heard, as a man hears in a swoon, voices tell- 
ing him how execrably he had performed the 
other man’s duties, and how he had endeared 
himself to all his associates. Then he fled on 
horseback through the night with his heart 
in his mouth. There was no answer at first 
to his blows on the gate, and he had just 
wheeled his horse round to kick it in, when 
Pir Khan appeared with a lantern and held 
his stirrup. 

“Has aught occurred?” said Holden. 

“The news does not come from my mouth, 
Protector of the Poor, but” — He held out his 
shaking hand, as befitted the bearer of good 
news who is entitled to a reward. 

Holden hurried through the court-yard. A 
light burned in the upper room. His horse 
neighed in the gateway, and he heard a pin- 
pointed wail that sent all the blood into the 
apple of his throat. It was a new voice, but it 
did not prove that Ameera was alive. 

“Who is there?” he called up the narrow 
brick staircase. 

There was a cry of delight from Ameera 
and then the voice of her mother, tremulous 
with old age and pride: “We be two women, 
and — the — man — thy son.” 

On the threshold of the room Holden 





Copyright, 1909, by The Edinburgh Society 



















































































































OF CLERGY 


235 


stepped on a naked dagger that was laid there 
to avert ill-luck, and it broke at the hilt under 
his impatient heel. 

“God is great!” cooed Ameera in the half- 
light. “Thou hast taken his misfortunes on 
thy head.” 

“Ay, but how is it with thee, life of my 
life? Old woman, how is it with her?” 

“She has forgotten her sufferings for joy 
that the child is born. There is no harm ; but 
speak softly,” said the mother. 

“It only needed thy presence to make me 
all well,” said Ameera. “My king, thou hast 
been very long away. What gifts hast thou 
for me? Ah! ah! It is I that bring gifts 
this time. Look, my life, look! Was there 
ever such a babe? Nay, I am too weak even 
to clear my arm from him.” 

“Rest, then, and do not talk. I am here, 
bachheri (little woman). 

“Well said, for there is a bond and a heel- 
rope (p ee chare e) between us now that noth- 
ing can break. Look — canst thou see in this 
light? He is without spot or blemish. Never 
was such a man-child. Ya illah! he shall be 
a pundit — no, a trooper of the queen. And, 
my life, dost thou love me as well as ever, 
though I am faint and sick and worn? An- 
swer truly.” 


236 WITHOUT BENEFIT 

“Yea. I love as I have loved, with all my 
soul. Lie still, pearl, and rest.” 

“Then do not go. Sit by my side here — 
so. Mother, the lord of this house needs a 
cushion. Bring it.” There was an almost 
imperceptible movement on the part of the 
new life that lay in the hollow of Ameera’s 
arm. “Aho!” she said, her voice breaking 
with love. “The babe is a champion from his 
birth. He is kicking me in the side with 
mighty kicks. Was there ever such a babe? 
And he is ours to us — thine and mine. Put 
thy hand on his head, but carefully, for he is 
very young, and men are unskilled in such 
matters.” 

Very cautiously Holden touched with the 
tips of his fingers the downy head. 

“He is of the Faith,” said Ameera; “for, 
lying here in the night-watches, I whispered 
the Call to Prayer and the Profession of Faith 
into his ears. And it is most marvelous that 
he was born upon a Friday, as I was born. 
Be careful of him, my life; but he can almost 
grip with his hands.” 

Holden found one helpless little hand that 
closed feebly on his finger. And the clutch 
ran through his limbs till it settled about his 
heart. Till then his sole thought had been for 


OF CLERGY 


237 


Ameera. He began to realize that there was 
some one else in the world, but he could not 
feel that it was a veritable son with a soul. 
He sat down to think, and Ameera dozed 
lightly. 

“Get hence, sahib,” said her mother, under 
her breath. “It is not good that she should 
find you here on waking. She must be still.” 

“I go,” said Holden, submissively. “Here 
be rupees. See that my baba gets fat and finds 
all that he needs.” 

The chink of the silver roused Ameera. “I 
am his mother, and no hireling,” she said, 
weakly. “Shall I look to him more or less 
for the sake of money ? Mother, give it back. 
I have borne my lord a son.” 

The deep sleep of weakness came upon her 
almost before the sentence was completed. 
Holden went down to the court-yard very 
softly, with his heart at ease. Pir Khan, the 
old watchman, was chuckling with delight. 

“This house is now complete,” he said, and 
without further comment thrust into Holden’s 
hands the hilt of a sabre worn many years 
ago, when Pir Khan served the queen in the 
police. The bleat of a tethered goat came from 
the well-curb. 

“There be two,” said Pir Khan— “two 


238 


WITHOUT BENEFIT 


goats of the best. I bought them, and they 
cost much money; and since there is no birth- 
party assembled, their flesh will be all mine. 
Strike craftily, sahib. ’Tis an ill-balanced 
sabre at the best. Wait till they raise their 
heads from cropping the marigolds.” 

“And why?” said Holden, bewildered. 

“For the birth sacrifice. What else? 
Otherwise the child, being unguarded from 
fate, may die. The Protector of the Poor 
knows the fitting words to be said.” 

Holden had learned them once, with little 
thought that he would ever say them in ear- 
nest. The touch of the cold sabre-hilt in his 
palm turned suddenly to the clinging grip of 
the child upstairs — the child that was his own 
son — and a dread of loss filled him. 

“Strike!” said Pir Khan. “Never life 
came into the world but life was paid for it. 
See, the goats have raised their heads. Now ! 
With a drawing cut!” 

Hardly knowing what he did Holden cut 
twice as he muttered the Mohammedan prayer 
that runs: “Almighty! In place of this my 
son I offer life for life, blood for blood, head 
for head, bone for bone, hair for hair, skin for 
skin.” The waiting horse snorted and 
bounded in his pickets at the smell of the raw 


OF CLERGY 


239 


blood that spurted over Holden’s riding- 
boots. 

“Well smitten!” said Pir Khan, wiping the 
sabre. “A swordsman was lost in thee. Go 
with a light heart, heaven born. I am thy 
servant and the servant of thy son. May the 
Presence live a thousand years, and . . . 

the flesh of the goats is all mine?” 

Pir Khan drew back richer by a month’s 
pay. Holden swung himself into the saddle 
and rode off through the low-hanging wood 
smoke of the evening. He was full of riotous 
exultation, alternating with a vast vague ten- 
derness directed toward no particular object, 
that made him choke as he bent over the neck 
of his uneasy horse. “I never felt like this in 
my life,” he thought. “I’ll go to the club and 
pull myself together.” 

A game of pool was beginning, and the 
room was full of men. Holden entered, 
eager to get to the light and the company of 
his fellows, singing at the top of his voice : 

“ ‘In Baltimore a-walking, a lady I did meet .* 99 

“Did you?” said the club secretary from 
his corner. “Did she happen to tell you that 
your boots were wringing wet. Great good- 
ness, man, it’s blood!” 


WITHOUT BENEFIT 


240 

“Bosh!” said Holden, picking his cue from 
the rack. “May I cut in? It’s dew. I’ve 
been riding through high crops. My faith! 
my boots are in a mess, though! 

“‘And if it be a girl, she shall wear a wedding-ring; 
And if it be a boy, he shall fight for his king; 

With his dirk and his cap, and his little jacket blue, 
He shall walk the quarter-deck’ ” — 

“Yellow and blue — green next player,” said 
the marker, monotonously. 

“ He shall walk the quarter-deck’ — am I 
green, marker? — ‘he shall walk the quarter- 
deck ! — ouch ! that’s a bad shot ! — ‘as his daddy 
used to do !’ ” 

“I don’t see that you have anything to crow 
about,” said a zealous junior civilian, acidly. 
“The government is not exactly pleased with 
your work when you relieved Sanders.” 

“Does that mean a wigging from headquar- 
ters?” said Holden, with an abstracted smile, 
“I think I can stand it.” 

The talk beat up round the ever-fresh sub- 
ject of each man’s work, and steadied Holden 
till it was time to go to his dark, empty bunga- 
low, where his butler received him as one who 
knew all his affairs. Holden remained awake 
for the greater part of the night, and his 
dreams were pleasant ones. 


OF CLERGY 


241 


II 

“How old is he now?” 

“Ya illah! What a man’s question! He 
is all but six weeks old; and on this night I 
go up to the house-top with thee, my life, to 
count the stars. For that is auspicious. And 
he was born on a Friday, under the sign of 
the Sun, and it has been told to me that he 
will outlive us both and get wealth. Can we 
wish for aught better, beloved?” 

“There is nothing better. Let us go up to 
the roof and thou shalt count the stars — but 
a few only, for the sky is heavy with cloud.” 

“The winter rains are late, and maybe they 
come out of season. Come, before all the 
stars are hid. I have put on my richest 
jewels.” 

“Thou hast forgotten the best of all.” 

“Ai! Ours. He comes also. He has 
never yet seen the skies.” 

Ameera climbed the narrow staircase that 
led to the flat roof. The child, placid and 
unwinking, lay in the hollow of her right 
arm, gorgeous in silver-fringed muslin, with 
a small skull-cap on his head. Ameera wore 
all that she valued most. The diamond nose- 
stud that takes the place of the Western patch 


242 


WITHOUT BENEFIT 


in drawing attention to the curve of the nos- 
tril, the gold ornament in the centre of the 
forehead studded with tallow-drop emeralds 
and flawed rubies, the heavy circlet of beaten 
gold that was fastened round her neck by the 
softness of the pure metal, and the chinking 
curb-patterned silver anklets hanging low over 
the rosy ankle-bone. She was dressed in 
jade-green muslin, as befitted a daughter of 
the Faith, and from shoulder to elbow and 
elbow to wrist ran bracelets of silver tied with 
floss silk, frail glass bangles slipped over the 
wrist in proof of the slenderness of the hand, 
and certain heavy gold bracelets that had no 
part in her country's ornaments, but since they 
were Holden’s gift, and fastened with a cun- 
ning European snap, delighted her immensely. 

They sat down by the low white parapet of 
the roof, overlooking the city and its lights. 

“They are happy down there,” said Ameera. 
“But I do not think that they are as happy as 
we. Nor do I think the white mem-log are 
as happy. And thou?” 

“I know they are not.” 

“How dost thou know?” 

“They give their children over to the 
nurses.” 

“I have never seen that,” said Ameera, with 


OF CLERGY 


243 


a sigh; “nor do I wish to see. Ahi!” — she 
dropped her head on Holden’s shoulder — “I 
have counted forty stars, and I am tired. Look 
at the child, love of my life. He is counting, 
too.” 

The baby was staring with round eyes at 
the dark of the heavens. Ameera placed him 
in Holden’s arms, and he lay there without a 
cry. 

‘‘What shall we call him among ourselves ?” 
she said. “Look! Art thou ever tired of 
looking? He carries thy very eyes! But the 
mouth” — 

“Is thine, most dear. Who should know 
better than I ?” 

“’Tis such a feeble mouth. Oh, so small! 
And yet it holds my heart between its lips. 
Give him to me now. He has been too long 
away.” 

“Nay, let him lie; he has not yet begun to 
cry.” 

“When he cries thou wilt give him back, 
eh? What a man of mankind thou art! If 
he cried, he were only the dearer to me. But, 
my life, what little name shall we give him?” 

The small body lay close to Holden’s heart. 
It was utterly helpless and very soft. He 
scarcely dared to breathe for fear of crushing 


244 


WITHOUT BENEFIT 


it. The caged green parrot, that is regarded 
as a sort of guardian spirit in most native 
households, moved on its perch and fluttered 
a drowsy wing. 

“There is the answer,” said Holden. “Mian 
Mittu has spoken. He shall be the parrot. 
When he is ready he will talk mightily, and 
run about. Mian Mittu is the parrot in thy — 
in the Mussulman tongue, is it not?” 

“Why put me so far off?” said Ameera, 
fretfully. “Let it be like unto some English 
name — but not wholly. For he is mine.” 

“Then call him Tota, for that is likest Eng- 
lish.” 

“Ay, Tota; and that is still the parrot. 
Forgive me, my lord, for a minute ago; but, 
in truth, he is too little to wear all the weight 
of Mian Mittu for name. He shall be Tota 
— our Tota to us. Hearest thou, oh, small 
one? Littlest, thou art Tota.” 

She touched the child’s cheek, and, he wak- 
ing, wailed, and it was necessary to return 
him to his mother, who soothed him with the 
wonderful rhyme of ’’Are koko, Ja re koko!” 
which says: 

“Oh, crow ! Go crow ! Baby’s sleeping sound, 

And the wild plums grow in the jungle, only a penny 
a pound — 

Only a penny a pound, Baba— only a penny a pound.” 


OF CLERGY 


245 


Reassured many times as to the price of 
those plums, Tota cuddled himself down to 
sleep. The two sleek white well-bullocks in 
the courtyard were steadily chewing the cud 
of their evening meal; old Pir Khan squatted 
at the head of Holden’s horse, his police sabre 
across his knees, pulling drowsily at a big 
water-pipe that croaked like a bull-frog in a 
pond. Ameera’s mother sat spinning in the 
lower veranda, and the wooden gate was shut 
and barred. The music of a marriage pro- 
cession came to the roof above the gentle hum 
of the city, and a string of flying-foxes crossed 
the face of the low moon. 

“I have prayed,” said Ameera, after a long 
pause, with her chin in her hand — “I have 
prayed for two things. First, that I may die 
in thy stead, if thy death is demanded; and in 
the second, that I may die in the place of the 
child. I have prayed to the prophet and to 
Beebee Miriam . 1 Thinkest thou either will 
hear?” 

“From thy lips who would not hear the 
lightest word?” 

“I asked for straight talk, and thou hast 
given me sweet talk. Will my prayers be 
heard ?” 


'The Virgin Mary. 


246 


WITHOUT BENEFIT 


“How can I say? God is very good.” 

“Of that I am not sure. Listen now. 
When I die or the child dies, what is thy fate? 
Living, thou wilt return to the bold white 
mem-log , for kind calls to kind.” 

“Not always.” 

“With a woman, no. With a man it is 
otherwise. Thou wilt in this life, later on, go 
back to thine own folk. That I could almost 
endure, for I should be dead. But in thy very 
death thou wilt be taken away to a strange 
place and a paradise that I do not know.” 

“Will it be paradise?” 

“Surely; for what God would harm thee? 
But we two — I and the child — shall be else- 
where, and we cannot come to thee, nor canst 
thou come to us. In the old days, before the 
child was born, I did not think of these things; 
but now I think of them perpetually. It is 
very hard talk.” 

“It will fall as it will fall. To-morrow we 
do not know, but to-day and love we know 
well. Surely we are happy now.” 

“So happy that it were well to make our 
happiness assured. And thy Beebe Miriam 
should listen to me; for she is also a woman. 
But then she would envy me — It is not seemly 
for men to worship a woman.” 


OF CLERGY 


247 


Holden laughed aloud at Ameera’s little 
spasm of jealousy. 

“Is it not seemly? Why didst thou not 
turn me from worship of thee, then?” 

“Thou a worshipper! And of me! My 
king, for all thy sweet words, well I know 
that I am thy servant and thy slave, and the 
dust under thy feet. And I would not have it 
otherwise. See !” 

Before Holden could prevent her she stooped 
forward and touched his feet ; recovering her- 
self with a little laugh, she hugged Tota closer 
to her bosom. Then, almost savagely: 

“Is it true that the bold white mem-log live 
for three times the length of my life? Is it 
true that they make their marriages not before 
they are old women?” 

“They marry as do others — when they are 
women.” 

“That I know, but they wed when they are 
twenty-five. Is that true?” 

“That is true.” 

“ Ya illah! At twenty-five! Who would 
of his own will take a wife even of eighteen? 
She is a woman- — aging every hour. Twenty- 
five! I shall be an old woman at that age, 
and — Those mem-log remain young forever. 
How I hate them!” 


248 


WITHOUT BENEFIT 


“What have they to do with us?” 

“I cannot tell. I know only that there may 
now be alive on this earth a woman ten years 
older than I who may come to thee and take 
thy love ten years after I am an old woman, 
grey-headed and the nurse of Tota’s son. 
That is unjust and evil. They should die 
too.” 

“Now, for all thy years thou art a child, 
and shalt be picked up and carried down the 
staircase.” 

“Total Have a care for Tota, my lord! 
Thou, at least, art as foolish as any babe!” 
Ameera tucked Tota out of harm’s way in 
the hollow in her neck, and was carried down- 
stairs, laughing, in Holden’s arms, while Tota 
opened his eyes and smiled, after the manner 
of the lesser angels. 

He was a silent infant, and almost before 
Holden could realize that he was in the world, 
developed into a small gold-colored godling 
and unquestioned despot of the house over- 
looking the city. Those were months of ab- 
solute happiness to Holden and Ameera — hap- 
piness withdrawn from the world, shut in be- 
hind the wooden gate that Pir Khan guarded. 
By day Holden did his work, with an immense 
pity for such as were not so fortunate as him- 


OF CLERGY 


249 


self, and a sympathy for small children that 
amazed and amused many mothers at the little 
station gatherings. At nightfall he returned 
to Ameera — Ameera full of the wondrous 
doings of Tota ; how he had been seen to clap 
his hands together and move his fingers with 
intention and purpose, which was manifestly a 
miracle; how, later, he had of his own initia- 
tive crawled out of his low bedstead on to the 
floor, and swayed on both feet for the space 
of three breaths. “And they were long 
breaths, for my heart stood still with delight/’ 
said Ameera. 

Then he took the beasts into his councils — 
the well-bullocks, the little grey squirrels, the 
mongoose that lived in a hole near the well, 
and especially Mian Mittu, the parrot, whose 
tail he grievously pulled, and Mian Mittu 
screamed till Ameera and Holden arrived. 

“Oh, villain! Child of strength! This is 
to thy brother on the house-top! Tobah, 
tobah! Fy! fy! But I know a charm to make 
him wise as Suleiman and Aflatoun . 1 Now 
look,” said Ameera. She drew from an em- 
broidered bag a handful of almonds. “See, 
we count seven, in the name of God!” She 
placed Mian Mittu, very angry and rumpled, 


Solomon and Plato. 


250 


WITHOUT BENEFIT 


on the top of his cage, and, seating herself be- 
tween the babe and the bird, cracked and 
peeled an almond less white than her teeth. 
“This is a true charm, my life; and do not 
laugh. See! I give the parrot one half and 
Tota the other.” Mian Mittu, with careful 
beak, took his share from between Ameera’s 
lips, and she kissed the other half into the 
mouth of the child, who eat it slowly, with 
wondering eyes. “This I will do each day of 
seven and without doubt he who is ours will 
be a bold speaker and wise. Eh, Tota, what 
wilt thou be when thou art a man and I am 
grey-headed?” Tota tucked his fat legs into 
adorable creases. He could crawl, but he was 
not going to waste the spring of his youth in 
idle speech. He wanted Mian Mittu’s tail to 
tweak. 

When he was advanced to the dignity of a 
silver belt — which, with a magic square en- 
graved on silver and hung round his neck, 
made up the greater part of his clothing — he 
staggered on a perilous journey down the 
garden to Pir Khan, and proffered him all his 
jewels in exchange for one little ride on Hold- 
en’s horse. He had seen his mother’s mother 
chaffering with peddlers in the veranda. Pir 
Khan wept, set the untried feet on his own 


OF CLERGY 


251 


grey head in sign of fealty, and brought the 
bold adventurer to his mother’s arms, vowing 
that Tota would be a leader of men ere his 
beard was grown. 

One hot evening, while he sat on the roof 
between his father and mother, watching the 
never-ending warfare of the kites that the 
city boys flew, he demanded a kite of his own, 
with Pir Khan to fly it, because he had a fear 
of dealing with anything larger than himself; 
and when Holden called him a “spark” he rose 
to his feet and answered slowly, in defence of 
his new-found individuality: “Hum ’ park 
nahin hai. Hum admi hai.” (I am no spark, 
but a man.) 

The protest made Holden choke, and devote 
himself very seriously to a consideration of 
Tota’s future. 

He need hardly have taken the trouble. The 
delight of that life was too perfect to endure. 
Therefore it was taken away, as many things 
are taken away in India, suddenly and with- 
out warning. The little lord of the house, as 
Pir Khan called him, grew sorrowful and 
complained of pains, who had never known 
the meaning of pain. Ameera, wild with ter- 
ror, watched him through the night, and in the 
dawning of the second day the life was shaken 


252 


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out of him by fever — the seasonal autumn 
fever. It seemed altogether impossible that 
he could die, and neither Ameera nor Holden 
at first believed the evidence of the body on 
the bedstead. Then Ameera beat her head 
against the wall, and would have flung herself 
down the well in the garden had Holden not 
restrained her by main force. 

One mercy only was granted to Holden. He 
rode to his office in broad daylight, and found 
waiting him an unusually heavy mail that de- 
manded concentrated attention and hard work. 
He was not, however, alive to this kindness of 
the gods. 


Ill 

The first shock of a bullet is no more than a 
brisk pinch. The wrecked body does not send 
in its protest to the soul till ten or fifteen sec- 
onds later. Then comes thirst, throbbing, 
and agony, and a ridiculous amount of scream- 
ing. Holden realized his pain slowly, exactly 
as he had realized his happiness, and with the 
same imperious necessity for hiding all trace 
of it. In the begninning he only felt that 
there had been a loss, and that Ameera needed 
comforting where she sat with her head on 


OF CLERGY 


253 


her knees, shivering as Mian Mittu, from the 
house-top, called “Tota! Total Total” Later 
all his world and the daily life of it rose up to 
hurt him. It was an outrage that any one of 
the children at the band-stand in the evening 
should be alive and clamorous when his own 
child lay dead. It was more than mere pain 
when one of them touched him, and stories 
told by overfond fathers of their children’s 
latest performances cut him to the quick. He 
could not declare his pain. He had neither 
help, comfort, nor sympathy, and Ameera, at 
the end of each weary day, would lead him 
through the hell of self-questioning reproach 
which is reserved for those who have lost a 
child, and believe that with a little — just a 
little — more care it might have been saved. 
There are not many hells worse than this, but 
he knows one who has sat down temporarily 
to consider whether he is or is not responsible 
for the death of his wife. 

“Perhaps,” Ameera would say, “I did not 
take sufficient heed. Did I, or did I not? The 
sun on the roof that day when he played so 
long alone, and I was — ahi! braiding my hair 
— it may be that the sun then bred the fever. 
If I had warned him from the sun he might 
have lived. But, oh, my life, say that I am 


254 


WITHOUT BENEFIT 


guiltless! Thou knowest that I loved him as 
I loved thee! Say that there is no blame on 
me, or I shall die — I shall die !” 

“There is no blame. Before God, none. 
It was written, and how could we do aught to 
save? What has been, has been. Let it go, 
beloved.” 

“He was all my heart to me. How can I let 
the thougt go when my arm tells me every 
night that he is not here? A hi! ahi! Oh, 
Tota, come back to me- — come back again, and 
let us be all together as it was before !” 

“Peace! peace! For thine own sake, and 
for mine also, if thou lovest me, rest.” 

“By this I know thou dost not care; and 
how shouldst thou? The white men have 
hearts of stone and souls of iron. Oh, that I 
had married a man of mine own people — 
though he beat me — and had never eaten the 
bread of an alien!” 

“Am I an alien, mother of my son?” 

“What else, sahib? . . . Oh, forgive 

me — forgive ! The death has driven me mad. 
Thou art the light of my heart, and the light 
of my eyes, and the breath of my life, and — 
and I have put thee from me, though it was 
but for a moment. If thou goest away, to 
whom shall I look for help? Do not be 


OF CLERGY 


255 


angry. Indeed, it was the pain that spoke, 
and not thy slave.” 

“I know — I know. We be two who were 
three. The greater need, therefore, that we 
should be one.” 

They were sitting on the roof, as of custom. 
The night was a warm one in early spring, and 
sheet-lightning was dancing on the horizon to 
a broken tune played by far-off thunder. 
Ameera settled herself in Holden’s arms. 

“The dry earth is lowing like a cow for the 
rain, and I — I am afraid. It was not like 
this when we counted the stars. But thou 
lovest me as much as before, though a bond 
is taken away? Answer.” 

“I love more, because a new bond has come 
out of the sorrow that we have eaten together, 
and that thou knowest.” 

“Yea, I know,” said Ameera, in a very small 
whisper. “But it is good to hear thee say so, 
my life, who art so strong to help. I will 
be a child no more, but a woman and an aid to 
thee. Listen. Give me my sitar, and I will 
sing bravely.” 

She took the light silver-studded sitar, and 
began a song of the great hero Raja Rasalu. 
The hand failed on the strings, the tune halted, 
checked, and at a low note turned off to the 


256 


WITHOUT BENEFIT 


poor little nursery rhyme about the wicked 
crow : 

“ ‘And the wild plums grow in the jungle — 

Only a penny a pound, 

Only a penny a pound, Baba — only’ ” — 

Then came the tears and the piteous rebel- 
lion against fate, till she slept, moaning a little 
in her sleep, with the right arm thrown clear 
of the body, as though it protected something 
that was not there. 

It was after this night that life became a 
little easier for Holden. The ever-present 
pain of loss drove him into his work, and the 
work repaid him by filling up his mind for 
eight or nine hours a day. Ameera sat alone 
in the house and brooded, but grew happier 
when she understood that Holden was more 
at ease, according to the custom of women. 
They touched happiness again, but this time 
with caution. 

“It was because we loved Tota that he died. 
The jealousy of God was upon us,” said 
Ameera. “I have hung up a large black jar 
before our window to turn the Evil Eye 
from us, and we must make no protestations of 
delight, but go softly underneath the stars, 
lest God find us out. Is that not good talk, 
worthless one?” 


OF CLERGY 


257 


She had shifted the accent of the word that 
means “beloved,” in proof of the sincerity of 
her purpose. But the kiss that followed the 
new christening was a thing that any deity 
might have envied. They went about hence- 
forth saying: “It is naught — it is naught,” 
and hoping that all the powers heard. 

The powers were busy on other things. 
They had allowed thirty million people four 
years of plenty, wherein men fed well and the 
crops were certain and the birth-rate rose 
every year ; the districts reported a purely agri- 
cultural population varying from nine hun- 
dred to two thousand to the square mile of the 
overburdened earth. It was time to make 
room. And the Member of the Lower Toot- 
ing, wandering about India in top-hat and 
frock-coat, talked largely of the benefits of 
British rule, and suggested as the one thing 
needful the establishment of duly qualified 
electoral system and a general bestowal of the 
franchise. His long-suffering hosts smiled 
and made him welcome, and when he paused 
to admire, with pretty picked words, the blos- 
som of the blood-red dhak-tree, that had flow- 
ered untimely for a sign of the sickness that 
was coming, they smiled more than ever. 

It was the Deputy Commissioner of Kot- 


258 


WITHOUT BENEFIT 


Kumharsen, staying at the club for a day, who 
lightly told a tale that made Holden’s blood 
run cold as he overheard the end. 

“He won’t bother any one any more. Never 
saw a man so astonished in my life. By 
Jove! I thought he meant to ask a question 
in the House about it. Fellow-passenger in 
his ship — dined next him — bowled over by 
cholera, and died in eighteen hours. You 
needn’t laugh, you fellows. The Member for 
Lower Tooting is awfully angry about it; but 
he’s more scared. I think he’s going to take 
his enlightened self out of India.” 

“I’d give a good deal if he were knocked 
over. It might keep a few vestrymen of his 
kidney to their parish. But what’s this about 
cholera? It’s full early for anything of that 
kind,” said a warden of an unprofitable salt- 
lick. 

“Dunno,” said the deputy commissioner, re- 
flectively. “We’ve got locusts with us. 
There’s sporadic cholera all along the north — 
at least, we’re calling it sporadic for decency’s 
sake. The spring crops are short in five dis- 
tricts, and nobody seems to know where the 
winter rains are. It’s nearly March now. I 
don’t want to scare anybody, but it seems to 
me that Nature’s going to audit her accounts 
with a big red pencil this summer.” 


OF CLERGY 


259 


“Just when I wanted to take leave, too,” 
said a voice across the room. 

“There won’t “"be much leave this year, but 
there ought to be a great deal of promotion. 
I’ve come in to persuade the government to 
put my pet canal on the list of famine-relief 
works. It’s an ill wind that blows no good. I 
shall get that canal finished at last.” 

“Is it the old programme, then,” said Hold- 
en — “famine, fever, and cholera?” 

“Oh, no! Only local scarcity and an un- 
usual prevalence of seasonal sickness. You’ll 
find it all in the reports if you live till next 
year. You’re a lucky chap. You haven’t got 
a wife to put you out of harm’s way. The 
hill-stations ought to be full of women this 
year.” 

“I think you’re inclined to exaggerate the 
talk in the bazaars,” said a young civilian in 
the secretariat. “Now, I have observed” — 

“I dare say you have,” said the deputy com- 
missioner, “but you’ve a great deal more to 
observe, my son. In the meantime, I wish to 
observe to you” — And he drew him aside to 
discuss the construction of the canal that was 
so dear to his heart. 

Holden went to his bungalow, and began to 
understand that he was not alone in the world, 


260 


WITHOUT BENEFIT 


and also that he was afraid for the sake of an- 
other, which is the most soul-satisfying fear 
known to man. 

Two months later, as the deputy had fore- 
told, Nature began to audit her accounts with 
a red pencil. On the heels of the spring reap- 
ings came a cry for bread, and the government, 
which had decreed that no man should die of 
want, sent wheat. Then came the cholera 
from all four quarters of the compass. It 
struck a pilgrim gathering of half a million 
at a sacred shrine. Many died at the feet of 
their god, the others broke and ran over the 
face of the land, carrying the pestilence with 
them. It smote a walled city and killed two 
hundred a day. The people crowded the 
trains, hanging on to the footboards and 
squatting on the roofs of the carriages; and 
the cholera followed them, for at each station 
they dragged out the dead and the dying on 
the platforms reeking of lime-wash and car- 
bolic acid. They died by the roadside, and 
the horses of the Englishmen shied at the 
corpses in the grass. The rains did not come, 
and the earth turned to iron lest man should 
escape by hiding in her. The English sent 
their wives away to the Hills, and went about 
their work, coming ’forward as they were bid- 


OF CLERGY 


261 

den to fill the gaps in the fighting line. Hold- 
en, sick with fear of losing his chiefest treas- 
ure on earth, had done his best to persuade 
Ameera to go away with her mother to the 
Himalayas. 

“Why should I go?” said she one evening 
on the roof. 

“There is sickness, and the people are dy- 
ing, and all the white mem-log have gone.” 

“All of them?” 

“All — unless, perhaps, there remain some 
old scald-head who vexes her husband’s 
heart by running risk of death.” 

“Nay; who stays is my sister, and thou 
must not abuse her, for I will be a scald-head 
too. I am glad all the bold white mem-log 
. are gone.” 

“Do I speak to a woman or a babe ? Go to 
the Hills, and I will see to it that thou goest 
like a queen’s daughter. Think, child! In a 
red-lacquered bullock-cart, veiled and curtain- 
ed, with brass peacocks upon the pole and red- 
cloth hangings. I will send two orderlies for 
guard, and” — 

“Peace! Thou art the babe in speaking 
thus. What use are those toys to me? He 
would have patted the bullocks and played with 
the housings. For his sake, perhaps — thou 


262 


WITHOUT BENEFIT 


hast made me very English — I might have 
gone. Now I will not. Let the mem-log 
run.” 

“Their husbands are sending them, be- 
loved.” 

“Very good talk. Since when hast thou 
been my husband to tell me what to do? I 
have but borne thee a son. Thou art only all 
the desire of my soul to me. How shall I de- 
part when I know that if evil befell thee by 
the breadth of so much as my littlest finger- 
nail — is that not small? — I should be aware 
of it though I were in Paradise? And here, 
this summer thou mayest die — ai, Janee, die! 
and in dying they might call to tend thee a 
white woman, and she would rob me in the 
last of thy love.” 

“But love is not born in a moment, or on a 
deathbed.” 

“What dost thou know of love, stone-heart? 
She would take thy thanks at least, and, by 
God and the Prophet and Beebee Miriam, the 
mother of thy Prophet, that I will never en- 
dure. My lord and my love, let there be no, 
more foolish talk of going away. Where thou 
art, I am. It is enough.” She put an arm 
round his neck and a hand on his mouth. 

There are not many happinesses so com- 


OF CLERGY 


263 


plete as those that are snatched under the 
shadow of the sword. They sat together and 
laughed, calling each other openly by every 
pet name that could move the wrath of the 
gods. The city below them was locked up in 
its own torments. Sulphur-fires blazed in the 
streets; the conches in the Hindoo temples 
screamed and bellowed, for the gods were in- 
attentive in those days. There was a service 
in the great Mohammedan shrine, and the call 
to prayer from the minarets was almost un- 
ceasing. They heard the wailing in the 
houses of the dead, and once the shriek of a 
mother who had lost a child and was calling 
for its return. In the grey dawn they saw the 
dead borne out through the city gates, each 
litter with its own little knot of mourners. 
Wherefore they kissed each other and 
shivered. 

It was a red and heavy audit, for the land 
was very sick and needed a little breathing- 
space ere the torrent of cheap life should flood 
it anew. The children of immature fathers 
and undeveloped mothers made no resistance. 
They were cowed and sat still, waiting till 
the sword should be sheathed in November, if 
it were so willed. There were gaps among 
the English, but the gaps were filled. The 


264 


WITHOUT BENEFIT 


work of superintending famine relief, cholera- 
sheds, medicine distribution, and what little 
sanitation was possible, went forward because 
it was ordered. 

Holden had been told to hold himself in 
readiness to move to replace the next man 
who should fall. There were twelve hours in 
each day when he could not see Ameera, and 
she might die in three. He was considering 
what his pain would be if he could not see her 
for three months, or if she died out of his 
sight. He was absolutely certain that her 
death would be demanded — so certain that, 
when he looked up from the telegram and saw 
Pir Khan breathless in the doorway, he 
laughed aloud, “And?” — said he. 

“When there is a cry in the night and the 
spirit flutters into the throat, who has a 
charm that will restore? Come swiftly, 
heaven born. It is the black cholera.” 

Holden galloped to his home. The sky 
was heavy with clouds, for the long-deferred 
rains were at hand, and the heat was stifling. 
Ameera’s mother met him in the court-yard, 
whimpering: “She is dying. She is nursing 
herself into death. She is all but dead. What 
shall I do, sahib?” 

Ameera was lying in the room in which 


OF CLERGY 


265 


Tota had been born. She made no sign when 
Holden entered, because the human soul is a 
very lonely thing, and when it is getting ready 
to go away hides itself in a misty border-land 
where the living may not follow. The black 
cholera does its work quietly and without ex- 
planation. Ameera was being thrust out of 
life as though the Angel of Death had 
himself put his hand upon her. The quick 
breathing seemed to show that she was either 
afraid or in pain, but neither eyes nor mouth 
gave any answer to Holden’s kisses. There 
was nothing to be said or done. Holden could 
only wait and suffer. The first drops of the 
rain began to fall on the roof, and he could 
hear shouts of joy in the parched city. 

The soul came back a little and the lips 
moved. Holden bent down to listen. “Keep 
nothing of mine,” said Ameera. “Take no 
hair from my head. She would make thee 
burn it later on. That flame I should feel. 
Lower! Stoop lower! Remember only that 
I was thine and bore thee a son. Though thou 
wed a white woman tomorrow, the pleasure of 
taking in thy arms thy first son is taken from 
thee forever. Remember me when thy son 
is born — the one that shall carry thy name be- 
fore all men. His misfortunes be on my head. 


266 


WITHOUT BENEFIT 


I bear witness — I bear witness” — the lips 
were forming the words on his ear — “that 
there is no God but — thee, beloved.” 

Then she died. Holden sat still, and 
thought of any kind was taken from him till 
he heard Ameera’s mother lift the curtain. 

“Is she dead, sahib?” 

“She is dead.” 

“Then I will mourn, and afterward take an 
inventory of the furniture in this house; for 
that will be mine. The sahib does not mean 
to resume it. It is so little, so very little, sahib, 
and I am an old woman. I would like to lie 
softly.” 

“For the mercy of God, be silent awhile! 
Go out and mourn where I cannot hear.” 

“Sahib, she will be buried in four hours.” 

“I know the custom. I shall go ere she is 
taken away. That matter is in thy hands. 
Look to it that the bed — on which — on which 
— she lies” — 

“Aha! That beautiful red-lacquered bed. 
I have long desired” — 

— “That the bed is left here untouched for 
my disposal. All else in the house is thine. 
Hire a cart, take everything, go hence, and 
before sunrise let there be nothing in this 
house but that which I have ordered thee to 
respect.” 


OF CLERGY 


267 


“I am an old woman. I would stay at least 
for the days of mourning, and the rains have 
just broken. Whither shall I go?” 

“What is that to me?” My order is that 
there is a going. The house-gear is worth a 
thousand rupees, and my orderly shall bring 
thee a hundred rupees to-night.” 

“That is very little. Think of the cart- 
hire.” 

“It shall be nothing unless thou goest, and 
with speed. Oh, woman, get hence, and leave 
me to my dead !” 

The mother shuffled down the staircase, 
and in her anxiety to take stock of the house- 
fittings forgot to mourn. Holden stayed by 
Ameera’s side, and the rain roared on the 
roof. He could not think connectedly by rea- 
son of the noise, though he made many at- 
tempts to do so. Then four sheeted ghosts 
glided dripping into the room and stared at 
him through their veils. They were the 
washers of the dead. Holden left the room 
and went out to his horse. He had come in a 
dead, stifling calm, through ankle-deep dust. 
He found the court-yard a rain-lashed pond 
alive with frogs, a torrent of yellow water ran 
under the gate, and a roaring wind drove the 
bolts of the rain like buckshot against the 
mud walls. Pir Khan was shivering in his 


268 


WITHOUT BENEFIT 


little hut by the gate, and the horse was stamp- 
ing uneasily in the water. 

“I have been told the sahib’s order,” said 
he. “It is well. This house is now desolate. 
I’ll go also, for my monkey face would be a 
reminder of that which has been. Concern- 
ing the bed, I will bring that to thy house 
yonder in the morning. But remember, sahib, 
it will be to thee as a knife turned in a green 
wound. I go upon a pilgrimage and I will 
take no money. I have grown fat in the pro- 
tection of the Presence, whose sorrow is my 
sorrow. For the last time I hold his stirrup.” 

He touched Holden’s foot with both hands, 
and the horse sprung out into the road, where 
the creaking bamboos were whipping the sky 
and all the frogs were chuckling. Holden 
could not see for the rain in his face. He 
put his hands before his eyes and muttered: 
“Oh, you brute! You utter brute!” 

The news of his trouble was already in his 
bungalow. He read the knowledge in his 
butler’s eyes when Ahmed Khan brought in 
food, and for the first and last time in his life 
laid a hand upon his master’s shoulder, say- 
ing: “Eat, sahib, eat. Meat is good against 
sorrow. I also have known. Moreover, the 
shadows come and go, sahib. The shadows 
come and go. These be curried eggs.” 


OF CLERGY 


269 


Holden could neither eat nor sleep. The 
heavens sent down eight inches of rain in that 
night and scoured the earth clean. The 
waters tore down walls, broke roads, and 
washed open the shallow graves in the Mo- 
hammedan burying-ground. All next day it 
rained, and Holden sat still in his house con- 
sidering his sorrow. On the morning of the 
third day he received a telegram which said 
only: “Ricketts, Myndonie. Dying. Holden. 
Relieve. Immediate.” Then he thought that 
before he departed he would look at the house 
wherein he had been master and lord. There 
was a break in the weather. The rank earth 
steamed with vapor, and Holden was vermil- 
ion from head to heel with the prickly-heat 
born of sultry moisture. 

He found that the rains had torn down the 
mud-pillars of the gateway, and the heavy 
wooden gate that had guarded his life hung 
drunkenly from one hinge. There was grass 
three inches high in the court-yard ; Pir 
Khan’s lodge was empty, and the sodden 
thatch sagged between the beams. A grey 
squirrel was in possession of the veranda, as 
if the house had been untenanted for thirty 
years instead of three days. Ameera’s 
mother had removed everything except some 
mildewed matting. The tick-tick of the little 


270 


WITHOUT BENEFIT 


scorpions as they hurried across the floor was 
the only sound in the house. Ameera’s room 
and that other one where Tota had lived were 
heavy with mildew, and the narow staircase 
leading to the roof was streaked and stained 
with rain-borne mud. Holden saw all these 
things, and came out again to meet in the road 
Durga Dass, his landlord— portly, affable, 
clothed in white muslin, and driving a C- 
spring buggy. He was overlooking his prop- 
erty, to see how the roofs withstood the stress 
of the first rains. 

“I have heard,” said he, “you will not take 
this place any more, sahib?” 

“ What are you going to do with it ?” 

“Perhaps I shall let it again.” 

“Then I will keep it on while I am away.” 

Durga Dass was silent for some time. 
“You shall not take it on, sahib,” he said. 
“When I was a young man I also — But to- 
day I am a member of the municipality. Ho ! 
ho! No. When the birds have gone, what 
need to keep the nest? I will have it pulled 
down; the timber will sell for something al- 
ways. It shall be pulled down, and the munic- 
ipality shall make a road across, as they de- 
sire, from the burning-ghat to the city wall. 
So that no man may say where this house 
stood.” 


THE MARK OF THE BEAST 



THE MARK OF THE BEAST 


Your Gods and my Gods — do you or I know which are 
the stronger ? — Native Proverb. 

E AST of Suez, some hold, the direct con- 
trol of Providence ceases; Man being 
there handed over to the power of the Gods 
and Devils of Asia, and the Church of Eng- 
land Providence only exercising an occasional 
and modified supervision in the case of Eng- 
lishmen. 

This theory accounts for some of the more 
unnecessary horrors of life in India: it may 
be stretched to explain my story. 

My friend Strickland of the Police, who 
knows as much of natives of India as is good 
for any man, can bear witness to the facts of 
the case. Dumoise, our doctor, also saw what 
Strickland and I saw. The inference which 
he drew from the evidence was entirely incor- 
rect. He is dead now ; he died in a rather cu- 
rious manner, which has been elsewhere de- 
scribed. 

When Fleete came to India he owned a little 
273 


274 THE MARK OF THE BEAST 


money and some land in the Himalayas, near 
a place called Dharmsala. Both properties 
had been left him by an uncle, and he came 
out to finance them. He was a big, heavy, 
genial, and inoffensive man. His knowledge 
of natives was, of course, limited, and he 
complained of the difficulties of the language. 

He rode in from his place in the hills to 
spend New Year in the station, and he stayed 
with Strickland. On New Year’s Eve there 
was a big dinner at the club, and the night 
was excusably wet. When men foregather 
from the uttermost ends of the Empire, they 
have .a right to be riotous. The Frontier had 
sent down a contingent o’ Catch-’em-Alive-O’s 
who had not seen twenty white faces for a 
year, and were used to ride fifteen miles to 
dinner at the next Fort at the risk of a Khy- 
beree bullet where their drinks should lie. 
They profited by their new security, for they 
tried to play pool with a curled-up hedge-hog 
found in the garden, and one of them carried 
the marker round the room in his teeth. Half 
a dozen planters had come in from the south 
and were talking “horse” to the Biggest Liar 
in Asia, who was trying to cap all their stories 
at once. Everybody was there, and there was 
a general closing up of ranks and taking stock 


THE MARK OF THE BEAST 275 

of our losses in dead or disabled that had 
fallen during the past year. It was a very wet 
night, and I remember that we sang “Auld 
Lang Syne” with our feet in the Polo Cham- 
pionship Cup, and our heads among the stars, 
and swore that we were all dear friends. Then 
some of us went away and annexed Burma, 
and some tried to open up the Soudan and were 
opened up by Fuzzies in that cruel scrub out- 
side Suakim, and some found stars and med- 
als, and some were married, which was bad, 
and some did other things which were worse, 
and the others of us stayed in our chains and 
strove to make money on insufficient experi- 
ences. 

Fleete began the night with sherry and bit- 
ters, drank champagne steadily up to dessert, 
then raw, rasping Capri with all the strength 
of whisky, took Benedictine with his coffee, 
four or five whiskies and sodas to improve his 
pool strokes, beer and bones at half-past two, 
winding up with old brandy. Consequently, 
when he came out, at half-past three in the 
morning into fourteen degrees of frost, he 
was very angry with his horse for coughing, 
and tried to leap-frog into the saddle. The 
horse broke away and went to his stables; so 
Strickland and I formed a Guard of Dishonor 
to take Fleete home. 


276 THE MARK OF THE BEAST 


Our road lay through the bazaar, close to a 
little temple of Hanuman, the Monkey-god, 
who is a leading divinity worthy of respect. 
All gods have good points, just as have all 
priests. Personally, I attach much importance 
to Hanuman, and am kind to his people — the 
great grey apes of the hills. One never knows 
when one may want a friend. 

There was a light in the temple, and as we 
passed, we could hear the voices of men chant- 
ing hymns. In a native temple, the priests rise 
at all hours of the night to do honor to their 
god. Before we could stop him, Fleete dashed 
up the steps, patted two priests on the back, 
and was gravely grinding the ashes of his ci- 
gar-butt into the forehead of the red, stone 
image of Hanuman. Strickland tried to drag 
him out, but he sat down and said solemnly : 

“Shee that? ’Mark of the B — beasht! 1 
made it. Ishn’t it fine?” 

In half a minute the temple was alive and 
noisy, and Strickland, who knew what came of 
polluting gods, said that things might occur. 
He, by virtue of his official position, long resi- 
dence in the country, and weakness for going 
among the natives, was known to the priests 
and he felt unhappy. Fleete sat on the ground 
and refused to move. He said that “good old 
Hanuman” made a very soft pillow. 



Copyright, 1909. by The Edinburgh Society 





THE MARK OF THE BEAST 277 

Then, without any warning, a Silver Man 
came out of a recess behind the image of the 
god. He was perfectly naked in that bitter, 
bitter cold, and his body shone like frosted sil- 
ver, for he was what the Bible calls “a leper 
as white as snow.” Also he had no face, be- 
cause he was a leper of some years’ standing, 
and his disease was heavy upon him. We 
stooped to haul Fleete up, and the temple was 
filling and filling with folk who seemed to 
spring from the earth, when the Silver Man 
ran in under our arms, making a noise exactly 
like the mewing of an otter, caught Fleete 
round the body and dropped his head on 
Fleete’s breast before we could wrench him 
away. Then he retired to a corner and sat 
mewing while the crowd blocked all the doors. 

The priests were very angry until the Sil- 
ver Man touched Fleete. That nuzzling 
seemed to sober them. 

At the end of a few minutes’ silence one of 
the priests came to Strickland and said, in 
perfect English, “Take your friend away. 
He has done with Hanuman, but Hanuman 
has not done with him.” The crowd gave 
room and we carried Fleete into the road. 

Strickland was very angry. He said that 
we might all three have been knifed, and that 


278 THE MARK OF THE BEAST 


Fleete should thank his stars that he had es- 
caped without injury. 

Fleete thanked no one. He said that he 
wanted to go to bed. He was gorgeously 
drunk. 

We moved on, Strickland silent and wrath- 
ful, until Fleete was taken with violent shiv- 
ering fits and sweating. He said that the 
smells of the bazaar were overpowering, and 
he wondered why slaughter-houses were per- 
mitted so near English residences. “Can’t 
you smell the blood ?” said Fleete. 

We put him to bed at last, just as the dawn 
was breaking, and Strickland invited me to 
have another whisky and soda. While we 
were drinking he talked of the trouble in the 
temple, and admitted that it baffled him com- 
pletely. Strickland hates being mystified by 
natives, because his business in life is to over- 
match them with their own weapons. He has 
not yet succeeded in doing this, but in fifteen 
or twenty years he will have made some small 
progress. 

“They should have mauled us,” he said, 
“instead of mewing at us. I wonder what 
they meant. I don’t like it one little bit.” 

I said that the Managing Committee of the 
temple would in all probability bring a crim- 


THE MARK OF THE BEAST 279 


inal action against us for insulting their re- 
ligion. There was a section of the Indian 
Penal Code which exactly met Fleete’s of- 
fence. Strickland said he only hoped and 
prayed that they would do this. Before I left 
I looked into Fleete’s room, and saw him lying 
on his right side, scratching his left breast. 
Then I went to bed cold, depressed, and un- 
happy, at seven o’clock in the morning. 

At one o’clock I rode over to Strickland’s 
house to inquire after Fleete’s head. I im- 
agined that it would be a sore one. Fleete was 
breakfasting and seemed unwell. His temper 
was gone, for he was abusing the cook for 
not supplying him with an underdone chop. 
A man who can eat raw meat after a wet 
night is a curiosity. I told Fleete this and he 
laughed. 

“You breed queer mosquitoes in these 
parts,” he said. “I’ve been bitten to pieces, 
but only in one place.” 

“Let’s have a look at the bite,” said Strick- 
land. “It may have gone down since this 
morning.” 

While the chops were being cooked, Fleete 
opened his shirt and showed us, just over his 
left breast, a mark, the perfect double of the 
black rosettes — the five or six irregular 


280 THE MARK OF THE BEAST 


blotches arranged in a circle — on a leopard’s 
hide. Strickland looked and said, "It was 
only pink this morning. It’s grown black 
now.” 

Fleete ran to a glass. 

"By Jove!” he said, "this is nasty. What 
is it?” 

We could not answer. Here the chops 
came in, all red and juicy, and Fleete bolted 
three in a most offensive manner. He ate on 
his right grinders only, and threw his head 
over his right shoulder as he snapped the meat. 
When he had finished, it struck him that he 
had been behaving strangely, for he said, apol- 
ogetically, "I don’t think I ever felt so hun- 
gry in my life. I’ve bolted like an ostrich.” 

After breakfast Strickland said to me, 
"Don’t go. Stay here, and stay for the 
night.” 

Seeing that my house was not three miles 
from Strickland’s, this request was absurd. 
But Strickland insisted, and was going to say 
something when Fleete interrupted by declar- 
ing in a shame-faced way that he felt hun- 
gry again. Strickland sent a man to my house 
to fetch over my bedding and a horse, and we 
three went down to Strickland’s stables to 
pass the hours until it was time to go out for a 


THE MARK OF THE BEAST 281 


ride. The man who has a weakness for horses 
never wearies of inspecting them; and when 
two men are killing time in this way they 
gather knowledge and lies the one from the 
other. 

There were five horses in the stables, and I 
shall never forget the scene as we tried to look 
them over. They seemed to have gone mad. 
They reared and screamed and nearly tore up 
their pickets; they sweated and shivered and 
lathered and were distraught with fear. 
Strickland’s horses used to know him as well 
as his dogs ; which made the matter more curi- 
ous. We left the stable for fear of the brutes 
throwing themselves in their panic. Then 
Strickland turned back and called me. The 
horses were still frightened, but they let us 
“gentle” and make much of them, and put 
their heads in our bosoms. 

“They aren’t afraid of us,” said Strickland. 
“D’ you know, I’d give three months’ pay if 
Outrage here could talk.” 

But Outrage was dumb, and could only 
cuddle up to his master and blow out his nos- 
trils, as is the custom of horses when they 
wish to explain things but can’t. Fleete came 
up when we were in the stalls, and as soon as 
the horses saw him, their fright broke out 
afresh. It was all that we could do to escape 


282 THE MARK OF THE BEAST 


from the place unkicked. Strickland said, 
“They don’t seem to love you, Fleete.” 

“Nonsense,” said Fleete; “my mare will 
follow me like a dog.” He went to her; she 
was in a loose-box; but as he slipped the bars 
she plunged, knocked him down, and broke 
away into the garden. I laughed, but Strick- 
land was not amused. He took his moustache 
in both fists and pulled at it till it nearly came 
out. Fleete, instead of going off to chase his 
property, yawned, saying that he felt sleepy. 
He went to the house to lie down, which was 
a foolish way of spending New Year’s Day. 

Strickland sat with me in the stables and 
asked if I had noticed anything peculiar in 
Fleete’s manner. I said that he ate his food 
like a beast; but that this might have been the 
result of living alone in the hills out of the 
reach of society as refined and elevating as 
ours for intance. Strickland was not amused. 
I do not think that he listened to me, for his 
next sentence referred to the mark on Fleete’s 
breast and I said that it might have been 
caused by blister-flies, or that it was possibly 
a birth-mark newly born and now visible for 
the first time. We both agreed that it was 
unpleasant to look at, and Strickland found 
occasion to say that I was a fool. 


THE MARK OF THE BEAST 283 


“I can’t tell you what I think now,” said 
he, “because you would call me a madman; 
but you must stay with me for the next few 
days, if you can. I want you to watch Fleete, 
but don’t tell me what you think till I have 
made up my mind.” 

“But I am dining out to-night,” I said. 

“So am I,” said Strickland, “and so is 
Fleete. At least if he doesn’t change his 
mind.” 

We walked about the garden smoking, but 
saying nothing — because we were friends, 
and talking spoils good tobacco — till our 
pipes were out. Then we went to wake up 
Fleete. He was wide awake and fidgeting 
about his room. 

“I say, I want some more chops,” he said. 
“Can I get them?” 

We laughed and said, “Go and change. 
The ponies will be round in a minute.” 

“All right,” said Fleete. “I’ll go when I 
get the chops — underdone ones, mind.” 

He seemed to be quite in earnest. It was 
four o’clock, and we had had breakfast at 
one; still, for a long time, he demanded those 
underdone chops. Then he changed into rid- 
ing clothes and went out into the veranda. 


284 THE MARK OF THE BEAST 


His pony — the mare had not been caught — 
would not let him come near. All three horses 
were unmanageable — mad with fear — and 
finally Fleete said that he would stay at home 
and get something to eat. Strickland and I 
rode out wondering. As we passed the temple 
of Hanuman, the Silver Man came out and 
mewed at us. 

“He is not one of the regular priests of the 
temple,” said Strickland. “I think I should 
peculiarly like to lay my hands on him.” 

There was no spring in our gallop on the 
race-course that evening. The horses were 
stale, and moved as though they had been rid- 
den out. 

“The fright after breakfast has been too 
much for them,” said Strickland. 

That was the only remark he made through 
the remainder of the ride. Once or twice I 
think he swore to himself; but that did not 
count. 

We came back in the dark at seven o’clock, 
and saw that there were no lights in the bun- 
galow. “Careless ruffians my servants are!” 
said Strickland. 

My horse reared at something on the car- 
riage drive, and Fleete stood up under its 
nose. 


THE MARK OF THE BEAST 285 


“What are you doing, grovelling about the 
garden?” said Strickland. 

But both horses bolted and nearly threw 
us. We dismounted by the stables and re- 
turned to Fleete, who was on his hands and 
knees under the orange-bushes. 

“What the devil’s wrong with you?” said 
Strickland. 

“Nothing, nothing in the world,” said 
Fleete, speaking very quickly and thickly. 
“I’ve been gardening — botanizing, you know. 
The smell of the earth is delightful. I think 
I’m going for a walk — a long walk — all 
night.” 

Then I saw that there was something ex- 
cessively out of order somewhere, and I said 
to Strickland, “I am not dining out.” 

“Bless you!” said Strickland. “Here, 
Fleete, get up. You’ll catch fever there. Come 
in to dinner and let’s have the lamps lit. We’ll 
all dine at home.” 

Fleete stood up unwillingly, and said, “No 
lamps — no lamps. It’s much nicer here. 
Let’s dine outside and have some more chops 
— lots of ’em and underdone — bloody ones 
with gristle.” 

Now a December evening in Northern In- 
dia is bitterly cold, and Fleete’s suggestion 
was that of a maniac. 


286 THE MARK OF THE BEAST 


“Come in,” said Strickland, sternly. “Come 
in at once.” 

Fleete came, and when the lamps were 
brought, we saw that he was literally plas- 
tered with dirt from head to foot. He must 
have been rolling in the garden. He shrank 
from the light and went to his room. His 
eyes were horrible to look at. There was a 
green light behind them, not in them, if you 
understand, and the man’s lower lip hung 
down. 

Strickland said, “There is going to be 
trouble — big trouble — to-night. Don’t you 
change your riding-things.” 

We waited and waited for Fleete’s reap- 
pearance, and ordered dinner in the meantime. 
We could hear him moving about his own 
room, but there was no light there. Presently 
from the room came the long-drawn howl of 
a wolf. 

People write and talk lightly of blood run- 
ning cold and hair standing up and things of 
that kind. Both sensations are too horrible 
to be trifled with. My heart stopped as though 
a knife had been driven through it, and 
Strickland turned as white as the table-cloth. 

The howl was repeated, and was answered 
by another howl far across the fields. 


THE MARK OF THE BEAST 287 


That set the gilded roof on the horror. 
Strickland dashed into Fleete’s room. I fol- 
lowed, and we saw Fleete getting out of the 
window. He made beast-noises in the back 
of his throat. He could not answer us when 
we shouted at him. He spat. 

I don’t quite remember what followed, but 
I think that Strickland must have stunned 
him with the long boot- jack or else I should 
never have been able to sit on his chest. Fleete 
could not speak, he could only snarl, and his 
snarls were those of a wolf, not of a man. 
The human spirit must have been giving way 
all day and have died out with the twilight. 
We were dealing with a beast that had once 
been Fleete. 

The affair was beyond any human and ra- 
tional experience. I tried to say “Hydro- 
phobia,” but the word wouldn’t come, because 
I knew that I was lying. 

We bound this beast with leather thongs of 
the punkah-rope, and tied its thumbs and big 
toes together, and gagged it with a shoe-horn, 
which makes a very efficient gag if you know 
how to arrange it. Then we carried it into 
the dining-room and sent a man to Dumoise, 
the doctor, telling him to come over at once. 
After we had despatched the messenger and 


288 THE MARK OF THE BEAST 


were drawing breath, Strickland said, “It’s 
no good. This isn’t any doctor’s work.” I, 
also, knew that he spoke the truth. 

The beast’s head was free, and it threw it 
about from side to side. Any one entering 
the room would have believed that we were 
curing a wolf’s pelt. That was the most 
loathsome accessory of all. 

Strickland sat with his chin in the heel of 
his fist, watching the beast as it wriggled on 
the ground, but saying nothing. The shirt 
had been torn open in the scuffle and showed 
the black rosette mark on the left breast. It 
stood out like a blister. 

In the silence of the watching we heard 
something without mewing like a she-otter. 
We both rose to our feet, and, I answer for 
myself, not Strickland, felt sick — actually 
and physically sick. We told each other, as 
did the men in Pinafore , that it was the cat. 

Dumoise arrived, and I never saw a little 
man so unprofessionally shocked. He said 
that it was a heart-rending case of hydropho- 
bia, and that nothing could be done. At least 
any palliative measures would only prolong 
the agony. The beast was foaming at the 
mouth. Fleete, as we told Dumoise, had been 
bitten by dogs once or twice. Any man who 


THE MARK OF THE BEAST 289 

keeps half a dozen terriers must expect a nip 
now and again. Dumoise could offer no help. 
He could only certify that Fleete was dying 
of hydrophobia. The beast was then howling, 
for it had managed to spit out the shoe-horn. 
Dumoise said that he would be ready to cer- 
tify to the cause of death, and that the end 
was certain. He was a good little man, and 
he offered to remain with us; but Strickland 
refused the kindness. He did not wish to 
poison Dumoise’s New Year. He would only 
ask him not to give the real cause of Fleete’s 
death to the public. 

So Dumoise left, deeply agitated; and as 
soon as the noise of the cart wheels had died 
away, Strickland told me, in a whisper, his 
suspicions. They were so wildly improbable 
that he dared not say them out aloud; and I, 
who entertained all Strickland’s beliefs, was 
so ashamed of owning to them that I pre- 
tended to disbelieve. 

“Even if the Silver Man had bewitched 
Fleete for polluting the image of Hanuman, 
the punishment could not have fallen so 
quickly.” 

As I was whispering this the cry outside 
the house rose again, and the beast fell into a 
fresh paroxysm of struggling till we were 


290 THE MARK OF THE BEAST 


afraid that the thongs that held it would give 
way. 

‘‘Watch !” said Strickland. “If this hap- 
pens six times I shall take the law into my 
own hands. I order you to help me.” 

He went into his room and came out in a 
few minutes with the barrels of an old shot- 
gun, a piece of fishing line, some thick cord, 
and his heavy wooden bedstead. I reported 
that the convulsions had followed the cry by 
two seconds in each case, and the beast seemed 
perceptibly weaker. 

Strickland muttered. “But he can't take 
away the life! He can’t take away the life!” 

I said, though I knew that I was arguing 
against myself, “It may be a cat. It must be 
a cat. If the Silver Man is responsible, why 
.does he dare to come here?” 

Strickland arranged the wood on the hearth, 
put the gun-barrels into the glow of the fire, 
spread the twine on the table and broke a 
walking stick in two. There was one yard of 
fishing line, gut, lapped with wire, such as is 
used for mahseer-fishmg, and he tied the two 
ends together in a loop. 

Then he said, “How can we catch him? 
He must be taken alive and unhurt.” 

I said that we must trust in Providence, and 


THE MARK OF THE BEAST 291 


go out softly with polo-sticks into the shrub- 
bery at the front of the house. The man or 
animal that made the cry was evidently mov- 
ing round the house as regularly as a night- 
watchman. We could wait in the bushes till 
he came by and knock him over. 

Strickland accepted this suggestion, and we 
slipped out from a bath-room window into 
the front veranda and then across the carriage 
drive into the bushes. 

In the moonlight we could see the leper 
coming round the corner of the house. He 
was perfectly naked, and from time to time he 
mewed and stopped to dance with his shadow. 
It was an unattractive sight, and thinking of 
poor Fleete, brought to such degradation by 
so foul a creature, I put away all my doubts 
and resolved to help Strickland from the 
heated gun-barrels to the loop of twine — 
from the loins to the head and back again — 
with all tortures that might be needful. 

The leper halted in the front porch for a 
moment and we jumped out on him with the 
sticks. He was wonderfully strong, and we 
were afraid that he might escape or be fatally 
injured before we caught him. We had an idea 
that lepers were frail creatures, but this 
proved to be incorrect. Strickland knocked 


292 THE MARK OF THE BEAST 


his legs from under him and I put my foot on 
his neck. He mewed hideously, and even 
through my riding-boots I could feel that his 
flesh was not the flesh of a clean man. 

He struck at us with his hand and feet- 
stumps. We looped the lash of a dog-whip 
round him, under the armpits, and dragged 
him backward into the hall and so into the 
dining-room where the beast lay. There we 
tied him with trunk-straps. He made no at- 
tempt to escape, but mewed. 

When we confronted him with the beast the 
scene was beyond description. The beast 
doubled backward into a bow as though he 
had been poisoned with strychnine, and 
moaned in the most pitiable fashion. Several 
other things happened also, but they cannot be 
put down here. 

“1 think I was right,” said Strickland. 
“Now we will ask him to cure this case.” 

But the leper only mewed. Strickland 
wrapped a towel round his hand and took the 
gun-barrels out of the fire. I put the half of 
the broken walking stick through the loop of 
the fishing-line and buckled the leper com- 
fortably to Strickland’s bedstead. I under- 
stood then how men and women and little 
children can endure to see a witch burned 


THE MARK OF THE BEAST 293 


alive; for the beast was moaning- on the floor, 
and though the Silver Man had no face, you 
could see horrible feelings passing through the 
slab that took its place, exactly as waves of 
heat play across red-hot iron — gun-barrels for 
instance. 

Strickland shaded his eyes with his hands 
for a moment and we got to work. This part 
is not to be printed. 

****** 

The dawn was beginning to break when the 
leper spoke. His mewings had not been satis- 
factory up to that point. The beast had 
fainted from exhaustion and the house was 
very still. We unstrapped the leper and told 
him to take away the evil spirit. He crawled 
to the beast and laid his hand upon the left 
breast. That was all. Then he fell face 
down and whined, drawing in his breath as 
he did so. 

We watched the face of the beast, and saw 
the soul of Fleete coming back into the eyes. 
Then a sweat broke out on the forehead and 
the eyes — they were human eyes — closed. We 
waited for an hour but Fleete still slept. We 
carried him to his room and bade the leper go, 
giving him the bedstead, and the sheet on the 


294 THE MARK OF THE BEAST 


bedstead to cover his nakedness, the gloves and 
the towels with which we had touched him, 
and the whip that had been hooked round his 
body. He put the sheet about him and went 
out into the early morning without speaking or 
mewing. 

Strickland wiped his face and sat down. A 
night-gong, far away in the city, made seven 
o’clock. 

“Exactly four-and-twenty hours!” said 
Strickland. “And I’ve done enough to ensure 
my dismissal from the service, besides per- 
manent quarters in a lunatic asylum. Do you 
believe that we are awake ?” 

The red-hot gun-barrel had fallen on the 
floor and was singeing the carpet. The smell 
was entirely real. 

That morning at eleven we two together 
went to wake up Fleet e. We looked and saw 
that the black leopard-rosette on his chest had 
disappeared. He was very drowsy and tired, 
but as soon as he saw us, he said, “Oh! Con- 
found you fellows. Happy New Year to you. 
Never mix your liquors. I’m nearly dead.” 

“Thanks for your kindness, but you’re over 
time,” said Strickland. “To-day is the morn- 
ing of the second. You’ve slept the clock 
round with a vengeance.” 


THE MARK OF THE BEAST 295 


The door opened, and little Dumoise put his 
head in. He had come on foot, and fancied 
that we were laying out Fleete. 

“I’ve brought a nurse,” said Dumoise. “I 
suppose that she can come in for .... 
what is necessary.” 

“By all means,” said Fleete, cheerily, sitting 
up in bed. “Bring on your nurses.” 

Dumoise was dumb. Strickland led him 
out and explained that there must have been a 
mistake in the diagnosis. Dumoise remained 
dumb and left the house hastily. He consid- 
ered that his professional reputation had been 
injured, and was inclined to make a personal 
matter of the recovery. Strickland went out 
too. When he came back, he said that he had 
been to call on the Temple of Hanuman to 
offer redress for the pollution of the god, and 
had been solemnly assured that no white man 
had ever touched the idol and that he was an 
incarnation of all the virtues laboring under 
a delusion. “What do you think ?” said 
Strickland. 

I said, “ ‘There are more things. . . .’ ” 

But Strickland hates that quotation. He 
says that I have worn it threadbare. 

One other curious thing happened which 
frightened me as much as anything in all the 
night’s work. When Fleete was dressed he 


296 THE MARK OF THE BEAST 


came into the dining-room and sniffed. He 
had a quaint trick of moving his nose when 
he sniffed. “Horrid doggy smell, here,” said 
he. “You should really keep those terriers of 
yours in better order. Try sulphur, Strick.” 

But Strickland did not answer. He caught 
hold of the back of a chair, and, without warn- 
ing went into an amazing fit of hysterics. It 
is terrible to see a strong man overtaken with 
hysteria. Then it struck me that we had 
fought for Fleete’s soul with the Silver Man 
in that room, and had disgraced ourselves as 
Englishmen forever, and I laughed and gasped 
and gurgled just as shamefully as Strickland, 
while Fleete thought that we had both gone 
mad. We never told him what we had done. 

Some years later, when Strickland had mar- 
ried and was a church-going member of 
society for his wife’s sake, we reviewed the 
incident dispassionately, and Strickland sug- 
gested that I should put it before the public. 

I cannot myself see that this step is likely to 
clear up the mystery; because, in the first 
place, no one will believe a rather unpleasant 
story, and, in the second, it is well known to 
every right-minded man that the gods of the 
heathen are stone and brass, and any attempt 
to deal with them otherwise is justly con- 
demned. 


THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 



THE HEAD OF THE DISTRICT 


There’s a convict more in the Central Jail, 

Behind the old mud wall ; 

There’s a lifter less on the Border trail. 

And the Queen’s Peace over all, 

Dear boys, 

The Queen’s Peace over all. 

For we must bear our leader’s blame. 

On us the shame will fall, 

If we lift our hand from a fettered land 
And the Queen’s Peace over all, 

Dear boys, 

The Queen’s Peace over all ! 

— The Running of Shindand. 


I 



E Indus had risen in flood without warn- 


A mg. Last night it was a fordable shal- 
low ; to-night five miles of raving muddy water 
parted bank and caving bank, and the river 
was still rising under the moon. A litter 
borne by six bearded men, all unused to the 
work, stopped in the white sand that bordered 
the whiter plain. 


“It’s God's will," they said. “We dare not 


299 




3 00 


THE HEAD OF 


cross to-night, even in a boat. Let us light 
a fire and cook food. We be tired men.” 

They looked at the litter inquiringly. 
Within, the Deputy Commissioner of the Kot- 
Kumharsen district lay dying of fever. 
They had brought him across country, six 
fighting-men of a frontier clan that he had 
won over to the paths of a moderate right- 
eousness, when he had broken down at the 
foot of their inhospitable hills. And Tallan- 
tire, his assistant, rode with them, heavy- 
hearted as heavy-eyed with sorrow and lack of 
sleep. He had served under the sick man for 
three years, and had learned to love him as 
men associated in toil of the hardest learn to 
love — or hate. Dropping from his horse he 
parted the curtains of the litter and peered 
inside. 

“Orde — Orde, old man, can you hear ? We 
have to wait till the river goes down, worse 
luck.” 

“I hear,” returned a dry whisper. “Wait 
till the river goes down. I thought we should 
reach camp before the dawn. Polly knows. 
She’ll meet me.” 

One of the litter-men stared across the river 
and caught a faint twinkle of light on the far 
side. He whispered to Tallantire, “There are 


THE DISTRICT 


3 oi 


his camp-fires, and his wife. They will cross 
in the morning, for they have better boats. 
Can he live so long?” 

Tallantire shook his head. Yardley-Orde 
was very near to death. What need to vex his 
soul with hopes of a meeting that could not 
be? The river gulped at the banks, brought 
down a cliff of sand, and snarled the more 
hungrily. The litter-men sought for fuel in 
the waste — dried camel-thorn and refuse of 
the camps that had waited at the ford. Their 
sword-belts clinked as they moved softly in 
the haze of the moonlight, and Tallantire’s 
horse coughed to explain that he would like a 
blanket. 

“I’m cold too,” said the voice from the litter. 
“I fancy this is the end. Poor Polly !” 

Tallantire rearranged the blankets; Khoda 
Dad Khan, seeing this, stripped off his own 
heavy-wadded sheepskin coat and added it to 
the pile. “I shall be warm by the fire pres- 
ently,” said he. Tallantire took the wasted 
body of his chief into his arms and held it 
against his breast. Perhaps if they kept him 
very warm Orde might live to see his wife 
once more. If only blind Providence would 
send a three-foot fall in the river! 

“That's better,” said Orde, faintly. “Sorry 


3 02 


THE HEAD OF 


to be a nuisance, but is — is there anything to 
drink ?” 

They gave him milk and whiskey, and Tal- 
lantire felt a little warmth against his own 
breast. Orde began to mutter. 

“It isn’t that I mind dying,” he said. “It’s 
leaving Polly and the district. Thank God! 
we have no children. Dick, you know, I’m 
dipped — awfully dipped — debts in my first 
five years’ service. It isn’t much of a pension, 
but enough for her. She has her mother at 
home. Getting there is the difficulty. And — 
and — you see, not being a soldier’s wife” — 

“We’ll arrange the passage home, of 
course,” said Tallantire, quietly. 

“It’s not nice to think of sending round the 
hat ; but, good Lord ! how many men I lie here 
and remember that had to do it! Morten’s 
dead — he was of my year. Shaughnessy is 
dead, and he had children ; I remember he used 
to read us their school-letters ; what a bore we 
thought him! Evans is dead — Kot-Kumhar- 
sen killed him! Ricketts of Myndonie is dead 
— and I’m going too. ‘Man that is born of 
woman is small potatoes and few in a hill.’ 
That reminds me, Dick ; the four Khusru 
Kheyl villages in our border want a one-third 
remittance this spring. That’s fair; their 


THE DISTRICT 


303 


crops are bad. See that they get it, and speak 
to Ferris about the canal. I should like to 
have lived till that was finished; it means so 
much for the North-Indus villages — but Fer- 
ris is an idle beggar — wake him up. You’ll 
have charge of the district till my successor 
comes. I wish they would appoint you per- 
manently; you know the folk. I suppose it 
will be Bullows, though. ’Good man, but too 
weak for frontier work ; and he doesn’t under- 
stand the priests. The blind priest at Jagai 
will bear watching. You’ll find it in my pa- 
pers, — in the uniform-case, I think. Call the 
Khusru Kheyl men up; I’ll hold my last pub- 
lic audience. Khoda Dad Khan!” 

The leader of the men sprang to the side of 
the litter, his companions following. 

“Men, I’m dying,” said Orde, quickly, in 
the vernacular; “and soon there will be no 
more Orde Sahib to twist your tails and pre- 
vent you from raiding cattle.” 

“God forbid this thing!” broke out the deep 
bass chorus. “The Sahib is not going to die.” 

“Yes, he is ; and then he will know whether 
Mahomed speaks truth, or Moses. But you 
must be good men, when I am not here. Such 
of you as live in our borders must pay your 
taxes quietly as before. I have spoken of the 


304 


THE HEAD OF 


villages to be gently treated this year. Such 
of you as live in the hills must refrain from 
cattle-lifting, and burn no more thatch, and 
turn a deaf ear to the voice of the priests, 
who, not knowing the strength of the Govern- 
ment, would lead you into foolish wars, 
wherein you will surely die and your crops be 
eaten by strangers. And you must not sack 
any caravans, and must leave your arms at 
the police-post when you come in ; as has been 
your custom, and my order. And Tallantire 
Sahib will be with you, but I do not know 
who takes my place. I speak now true talk, 
for I am as it were already dead, my children, 
— for though ye be strong men, ye are chil- 
dren/’ 

“And thou art our father and our mother,” 
broke in Khoda Dad Khan with an oath. 
“What shall we do, now there is no one to 
speak for us, or to teach us to go wisely !” 

“There remains Tallantire Sahib. Go to 
him; he knows your talk and your heart. 
Keep the young men quiet, listen to the old 
men, and obey. Khoda Dad Khan, take my 
ring. The watch and chain go to thy brother. 
Keep those things for my sake, and I will 
speak to whatever God I may encounter and 
tell him that the Khusru Kheyl are good men. 
Ye have my leave to go.” 


THE DISTRICT 


305 


Khoda Dad Khan, the ring upon his finger, 
choked audibly as he caught the well-known 
formula that closed an interview. His 
brother turned to look across the river. The 
dawn was breaking, and a speck of white 
showed on the dull silver of the stream. “She 
comes,” said the man under his breath. “Can 
he live for another two hours?” And he 
pulled the newly-acquired watch out of his 
belt and looked uncomprehendingly at the 
dial, as he had seen Englishmen do. 

For two hours the bellying sail tacked and 
blundered up and down the river, Tallantire 
still clasping Orde in his arms, and Khoda 
Dad Khan chafing his feet. He spoke now 
and again of the district and his wife, but, as 
the end neared, more frequently of the latter. 
They hoped he did not know that she was even 
then risking her life in a crazy native boat to 
regain him. But the awful foreknowledge of 
the dying deceived them. Wrenching himself 
forward, Orde looked through the curtains 
and saw how near was the sail. “That’s 
Polly,” he said, simply, though his mouth was 
wried with agony. “Polly and — the grimmest 
practical joke ever played on a man. Dick — 
you’ll — have — to — explain.” 

And an hour later Tallantire met on the 
bank a woman in a gingham riding-habit and 


3°6 


THE HEAD OF 


a sun-hat who cried out to him for her hus- 
band — her boy and her darling — while Khoda 
Dad Khan threw himself face-down on the 
sand and covered his eyes. 


II 

The very simplicity of the notion was its 
charm. What more easy to win a reputation 
for far-seeing statesmanship, originality, and, 
above all, deference to the desires of the peo- 
ple, than by appointing a child of the country 
to the rule of that country? Two hundred 
millions of the most loving and grateful folk 
under Her Majesty’s dominion would laud 
the fact, and their praise would endure for- 
ever. Yet he was indifferent to praise or 
blame, as befitted the Very Greatest of All 
Viceroys. His administration was based upon 
principle, and the principle must be enforced 
in season and out of season. His pen and 
tongue had created the New India, teeming 
with possibilities — loud-voiced, insistent, a na- 
tion among nations— all his very own. 
Wherefore the Very Greatest of All the Vice- 
roys took another step in advance, and with 


THE DISTRICT 


307 


it counsel of those who should have advised 
him on the appointment of a successor to 
Yardley-Orde. There was a gentleman and 
a member of the Bengal Civil Service who 
had won his place and a university degree to 
boot in fair and open competition with the 
sons of the English. He was cultured, of the 
world, and, if report spoke truly, had wisely 
and, above all, sympathetically ruled a 
crowded district in Southeastern Bengal. He 
had been to England and charmed many 
drawing-rooms there. His name, if the Vice- 
roy recollected aright, was Mr. Grish Chunder 
De, M. A. In short, did anybody see any ob- 
jection to the appointment, always on princi- 
ple, of a man of the people to rule the people? 
The district in Southeastern Bengal might 
with advantage, he apprehended, pass over to a 
younger civilian of Mr. G. C. De’s nationality 
(who had written a remarkably clever pam- 
phlet on the political value of sympathy in ad- 
ministration) ; and Mr. G. C. De could be 
transferred northward to Kot-Kumharsen. 
The Viceroy was averse, on principle, to in- 
terfering with appointments under control of 
the Provincial Governments. He wished it to 
be understood that he merely recommended 
and advised in this instance. As regarded 


3°8 


THE HEAD OF 


the mere question of race, Mr. Grish Chunder 
De was more English than the English, and 
yet possessed of that peculiar sympathy and 
insight which the best among the best Service 
in the world could only win to at the end of 
their service. 

The stern, black-bearded kings who sit 
about the Council-board of India divided on 
the step, with the inevitable result of driving 
the Very Greatest of All Viceroys into the 
borders of hysteria, and a bewildered obsti- 
nacy pathetic as that of a child. 

“The principle is sound enough,” said the 
weary-eyed Head of the Red Provinces in 
which Kot-Kumharsen lay, for he too held 
theories. “The only difficulty is”- — 

“Put the screw on the District officials ; bri- 
gade De with a very strong Deputy Commis- 
sioner on each side of him; give him the best 
assistant in the Province; rub the fear of God 
into the people beforehand; and if anything 
goes wrong, say that his colleagues didn’t 
back him up. All these lovely little experi- 
ments recoil on the District-Officer in the 
end,” said the Knight of the Drawn Sword 
with a truthful brutality that made the Head 
of the Red Provinces shudder. And on a 
tacit understanding of this kind the transfer 


THE DISTRICT 


309 


was accomplished, as quietly as might be for 
many reasons. 

It is sad to think that what goes for public 
opinion in India did not generally see the wis- 
dom of the Viceroy’s appointment. There 
were not lacking indeed hireling organs, no- 
toriously in the pay of a tyrannous bureau- 
cracy, who more than hinted that His Excel- 
lency was a fool, a dreamer of dreams, a doc- 
trinaire, and, worst of all, a trifler with the 
lives of men. “The Viceroy’s Excellence Ga- 
zette,” published in Calcutta, was at pains to 
thank “Our beloved Viceroy for once more 
and again thus gloriously vindicating the 
potentialities of the Bengali nations for ex- 
tended executive and administrative duties in 
foreign parts beyond our ken. We do not at 
all doubt that our excellent fellow-townsman, 
Mr. Grish Chunder De, Esq., M. A., will up- 
hold the prestige of the Bengali, notwithstand- 
ing what underhand intrigue and peshbundi 
may be set on foot to insidiously nip his fame 
and blast his prospects among the proud civil- 
ians, some of which will now have to serve 
under a despised native and take orders too. 
How will you like that, Misters? We entreat 
our beloved Viceroy still to substantiate him- 
self superiorly to race-prejudice and color- 
blindness, and to allow the flower of this now 


3 IQ 


THE HEAD OF 


our Civil Service all the full pays and allow- 
ances granted to his more fortunate breth- 


ren. 


Ill 

“When does this man take over charge? 
I’m alone just now, and I gather that I’m to 
stand fast under him.” 

“Would you have cared for a transfer?” 
said Bullows, keenly. Then, laying his hand 
on Tallantire’s shoulder: “We’re all in the 
same boat; don’t desert us. And yet, why 
the devil should you stay, if you can get an- 
other charge?” 

“It was Orde’s,” said Tallantire, simply. 

“Well, it’s De’s now. He’s a Bengali of the 
Bengalis, crammed with code and case law; a 
beautiful man so far as routine and desk work 
go, and pleasant to talk to. They naturally 
have always kept him in his own home district, 
where all his sisters and his cousins and his 
aunts lived, somewhere south of Dacca. He 
did no more than turn the place into a pleas- 
ant little family preserve, allowed his subor- 
dinates to do what they liked, and let every- 
body have a chance at the shekels. Conse- 


THE DISTRICT 


31 * 

quently he’s immensely popular down there.” 

“I’ve nothing to do with that. How on 
earth am I to explain to the district that they 
are going to be governed by a Bengali? Do 
you — does the Government, I mean — suppose 
that the Khusru Kheyl will sit quiet when they 
once know ? What will the Mahomedan heads 
of villages say? How will the police — Muzbi 
Sikhs and Pathans — how will they work under 
him? We couldn’t say anything if the Gov- 
ernment appointed a sweeper; but my people 
will say a good deal, you know that. It’s a 
piece of cruel folly!” 

“My dear boy, I know all that, and more. 
I’ve represented it, and have been told that I 
am exhibiting ‘culpable and puerile prejudice.’ 
By Jove, if the Khusru Kheyl don’t exhibit 
something worse than that I don’t know the 
Border! The chances are that you will have 
the district alight on your hands, and I shall 
have to leave my work and help you pull 
through. I needn’t ask you to stand by the 
Bengali man in every possible way. You’ll do 
that for your own sake.” 

“For Orde’s. I can’t say that I care two- 
pence personally.” 

“Don’t be an ass. It’s grievous enough, 
God knows, and the Government will know 


312 


THE HEAD OF 


later on; but there’s no reason for your sulk- 
ing. You must try to run the district; you 
must stand between him and as much insult as 
possible; you must show him the rope; you 
must pacify the Khusru Kheyl and just warn 
Curbar of the Police to look out for trouble 
by the way. I’m always at the end of a tele- 
graph-wire, and willing to peril my reputation 
to hold the district together. You’ll lose yours, 
of course. If you keep things straight, and 
he isn’t actually beaten with a stick when he’s 
on tour, he’ll get all the credit. If anything 
goes wrong, you’ll be told that you didn’t sup- 
port him loyally.” 

< “I know what I’ve got to do,” said Tallan- 
tire, wearily, “and I’m going to do it. But it’s 
hard.” 

“The work is with us, the event is with 
Allah, — as Orde used to say when he was 
more than usually in hot water.” And Bul- 
lows rode away. 

That two gentlemen in Her Majesty’s Ben- 
gal Civil Service should thus discuss a third, 
also in that service, and a cultured and affable 
man withal, seems strange and saddening. Yet 
listen to the artless babble of the Blind Mullah 
of Jagai, the priest of the Khusru Kheyl, sit- 
ting upon a rock overlooking the Border. Five 


THE DISTRICT 


313 


years before, a chance-hurled shell from a 
screw-gun battery had dashed earth in the face 
of the Mullah, then urging a rush of Ghazis 
against half a dozen British bayonets. So he 
became blind, and hated the English none the 
less for the little accident. Yardley-Orde knew 
his failing, and had many times laughed at 
him therefore. 

“Dogs you are,” said the Blind Mullah to 
the listening tribesmen round the fire. 
“Whipped dogs ! Because you listened to Orde 
Sahib and called him father and behaved as 
his children, the British Government have 
proven how they regard you. Orde Sahib ye 
know is dead.” 

“Ai! ai! ai!” said half a dozen voices. 

“He was a man. Comes now in his stead, 
whom think ye? A Bengali of Bengal — an 
eater of fish from the South.” 

“A lie!” said Khoda Dad Khan. “And but 
for the small matter of thy priesthood, I’d 
drive my gun butt-first down thy throat.” 

“Oho, art thou there, lickspittle of the Eng- 
lish? Go in to-morrow across the Border to 
pay service to Orde Sahib’s successor, and thou 
shalt slip thy shoes at the tent-door of a Ben- 
gali, as thou shalt hand thy offering to a Ben- 
gali’s black fist. This I know; and in my 


314 


THE HEAD OF 


youth, when a young man spoke evil to a 
Mullah holding the doors of Heaven and Hell, 
the gun-butt was not rammed down the Mul- 
lah’s gullet. No !” 

The blind Mullah hated Khoda Dad Khan 
with Afghan hatred; both being rivals for the 
headship of the tribe ; but the latter was feared 
for bodily as the other for spiritual gifts. 
Khoda Dad Khan looked at Orde’s ring and 
grunted, “I go in to-morrow because I am not 
an old fool, preaching war against the Eng- 
lish. If the Government, smitten with mad- 
ness, have done this, then . . .” 

“Then,” croaked the Mullah, “thou wilt 
take out the young men and strike at the four 
villages within the Border?” 

“Or wring thy neck, black raven of Jehan- 
num, for a bearer of ill-tidings.” 

Khoda Dad Khan oiled his long locks with 
great care, put on his best Bokhara belt, a new 
turban cap and fine green shoes, and accompa- 
nied by a few friends came down from the hills 
to pay a visit to the new Deputy Commissioner 
of Kot-Kumharsen. Also he bore tribute — 
four or five priceless gold mohurs of Akbar’s 
time in a white handkerchief. These the Dep- 
uty Commissioner would touch and remit. 
The little ceremony used to be a sign that, so 


THE DISTRICT 


315 


far as Khoda Dad Khan’s personal influence 
went, the Khusru Kheyl would be good boys, 
— till the next time; especially if Khoda Dad 
Khan happened to like the new Deputy Com- 
misioner. In Yardley-Orde’s consulship his 
visit concluded with a sumptuous dinner and 
perhaps forbidden liquors ; certainly with some 
wonderful tales and great good-fellowship. 
Then Khoda Dad Khan would swagger back 
to his hold, vowing that Orde Sahib was one 
prince and Tallantire Sahib another, and that 
whosoever went a-raiding into British terri- 
tory would be flayed alive. On this occasion he 
found the Deputy Commissioner’s tents look- 
ing much as usual. Regarding himself as 
privileged he strode through the open door to 
confront a suave, portly Bengali in English 
costume writing at a table. Unversed in the 
elevating influence of education, and not in the 
least caring for university degrees, Khoda Dad 
Khan promptly set the man down for a Babu 
— the native clerk of the Deputy Commis- 
sioner — a hated and despised animal. 

“Ugh !” said he, cheerfully. “Where’s 
your master, Babujee?” 

“I am the Deputy Commissioner,” said the 
gentleman in English. 

Now he overvalued the effects of university 
degrees, and stared Khoda Dad Khan in the 


3 j 6 


THE HEAD OF 


face. But if from your earliest infancy you 
have been accustomed to look on battle, mur- 
der, and sudden death, if spilt blood affects 
your nerves as much as red paint, and, above 
all, if you have faithfully believed that the 
Bengali was the servant of all Hindustan, and 
that all Hindustan was vastly inferior to your 
own large, lustful self, you can endure, even 
though uneducated, a very large amount of 
looking over. You can even stare down a 
graduate of an Oxford college if the latter 
has been born in a hothouse, of stock bred in 
a hothouse, and fearing physical pain as some 
men fear sin; especially if your opponent’s 
mother has frightened him to sleep in his 
youth with horrible stories of devils inhabit- 
ing Afghanistan, and dismal legends of the 
black North. The eyes behind the gold spec- 
tacles sought the floor. Khoda Dad Khan 
chuckled, and swung out to find Tallantire 
hard by. “Here,” said he, roughly, thrusting 
the coins before him, “touch and remit. That 
answers for my good behavior. But, O Sahib, 
has the Government gone mad to send a black 
Bengali dog to us? And am I to pay service 
to such an one? And are you to work under 
him ? What does it mean ?” 

“It is an order,” said Tallantire. He had 


THE DISTRICT 


317 


expected something of this kind. “He is a 
very clever S-sahib.” 

“He a Sahib! He’s a kala adnti — a black 
man — unfit to run at the tail of a potter’s don- 
key. All the peoples of the earth have harried 
Bengal. It is written. Thou knowest when 
we of the North wanted women of plunder 
whither went we? To Bengal — where else? 
What child’s talk is this of Sahibdom — after 
Orde Sahib too! Of a truth the Blind Mullah 
was right.” 

“What of him?” asked Tallantire, uneasily. 
He mistrusted that old man with his dead eyes 
and his deadly tongue. 

“Nay, now, because of the oath that I sware 
to Orde Sahib when we watched him die by the 
river yonder, I will tell. In the first place, is it 
true that the English have set the heel of the 
Bengali on their own neck, and that there is no 
more English rule in the land?” 

“I am here,” said Tallantire, “and I serve 
the Maharanee of England.” 

“The Mullah said otherwise, and further 
that because we loved Orde Sahib the Govern- 
ment sent us a pig to show that we were dogs, 
who till now have been held by the strong 
hand. Also that they were taking away the 
white soldiers, that more Hindustanis might 
come, and that all was changing.” 


THE HEAD OF 


3i8 

This is the worst of ill-considered handling 
of a very large country. What looks so feasi- 
ble in Calcutta, so right in Bombay, so unas- 
sailable in Madras, is misunderstood by the 
North and entirely changes its complexion on 
the banks of the Indus. Khoda Dad Khan ex- 
plained as clearly as he could that, though he 
himself intended to be good, he really could 
not answer for the more reckless members of 
his tribe under the leadership of the Blind 
Mullah. They might or they might not give 
trouble, but they certainly had no intention 
whatever of obeying the new Deputy Commis- 
sioner. Was Tallantire perfectly sure that in 
the event of any systematic border- raiding the 
force in the district could put it down 
promptly ? 

“Tell the Mullah if he talks any more fool’s 
talk,” said Tallantire, curtly, “that he takes his 
men on to certain death, and his tribe to block- 
ade, trespass-fine and blood-money. But why 
do I talk to one who no longer carries weight 
in the counsels of the tribe?” 

Khoda Dad Khan pocketed that insult. He 
had learned something that he much wanted to 
know, and returned to his hills to be sarcasti- 
cally complimented by the Mullah, whose 
tongue raging round the camp-fires was dead- 
lier flame than ever dung-cake fed. 


THE DISTRICT 


319 


IV 

Be pleased to consider here for a moment 
the unknown district of Kot-Kumharsen. It 
lay cut lengthways by the Indus under the line 
of the Khusru hills — ramparts of useless earth 
and tumbled stone. It was seventy miles long 
by fifty broad, maintained a population of 
something less than two hundred thousand, 
and paid taxes to the extent of forty thousand 
pounds a year on an area that was by rather 
more than half sheer, hopeless waste. The cul- 
tivators were not gentle people, the miners for 
salt were less gentle still, and the cattle-breed- 
ers least gentle of all. A police-post in the top 
right-hand corner and a tiny mud fort in the 
top left-hand corner prevented as much salt- 
smuggling and cattle-lifting as the influence of 
the civilians could not put down; and in the 
bottom right-hand corner lay Jumala, the dis- 
trict headquarters — a pitiful knot of lime- 
washed barns facetiously rented as houses, 
reeking with frontier fever, leaking in the 
rain, and ovens in the summer. 

It was to this place that Grish Chunder De 
was traveling, there formally to take over 
charge of the district. But the news of his 
coming had gone before. Bengalis were as 


320 


THE HEAD OF 


scarce as poodles among the simple Borderers, 
who cut each other’s heads open with their 
long spades and worshipped impartially at 
Hindu and Mahomedan shrines. They 
crowded to see him, pointing at him, and di- 
versely comparing him to a gravid milch-buf- 
falo, or a broken-down horse, as their limited 
range of metaphor prompted. They laughed 
at his police-guard, and wished to know how 
long the burly Sikhs were going to lead Ben- 
gali apes. They inquired whether he had 
brought his women with him, and advised him 
explicitly not to tamper with theirs. It re- 
mained for a wrinkled hag by the roadside to 
slap her lean breasts as he passed, crying, “I 
have suckled six that could have eaten six 
thousand of him. The Government shot them, 
and made this That a king !” Whereat a blue- 
turbaned huge-boned plough mender shouted, 
“Have hope, mother o’ mine! He may yet go 
the way of thy wastrels.” And the children, 
the little brown puff-balls, regarded curiously. 
It was generally a good thing for infancy to 
stray into Orde Sahib’s tent, where copper 
coins were to be won for the mere wishing, 
and tales of the most authentic, such as even 
their mothers knew but the first half of. No! 
This fat black man could never tell them how 


THE DISTRICT 


321 


Pir Prith hauled the eye-teeth out of ten devils ; 
how the big stones came to lie all in a row on 
top of the Khusru hills, and what happened if 
you shouted through the village-gate to the 
grey wolf at even “Badl Khas is dead.” 
Meantime Grish Chunder De talked hastily 
and much to Tallantire, after the manner of 
those who are “more English than the Eng- 
lish,” — of Oxford and “home,” with much 
curious book-knowledge of bump-suppers, 
cricket-matches, hunting-runs, and other un- 
holy sports of the alien. “We must get these 
fellows in hand,” he said once or twice, un- 
easily ; “get them well in hand, and drive them 
on a tight rein. No use, you know, being 
slack with your district.” 

And a moment later Tallantire heard De- 
bendra Nath De, who brotherliwise had fol- 
lowed his kinsman’s fortune and hoped for 
the shadow of his protection as a pleader, 
whisper in Bengali, “Better are dried fish at 
Dacca than drawn swords at Delhi. Brother 
of mine, these men are devils, as our mother 
said. And you will always have to ride upon 
a horse !” 

That night there was a public audience in a 
broken-down little town thirty miles from Ju- 
mala, when the new Deputy Commissioner, in 


322 


THE HEAD OF 


reply to the greetings of the subordinate native 
officials, delivered a speech. It was a carefully 
thought-out speech, which would have been 
very valuable had not his third sentence begun 
with three innocent words, “Hamara hookum 
hai — It is my order.” Then there was a laugh, 
clear and bell-like, from the back of the big 
tent, where a few Border landholders sat, and 
the laugh grew and scorn mingled with it, and 
the lean, keen face of Debendra Nath De paled, 
and Grish Chunder turning to Tallantire 
spake: “You — you put up this arrangement.” 
Upon that instant the noise of hoofs rang 
without, and there entered Curbar, the District 
Superintendent of Police, sweating and dusty. 
The State had tossed him into a corner of the 
province for seventeen weary years, there to 
check smuggling of salt, and to hope for pro- 
motion that never came. He had forgotten 
how to keep his white uniform clean, had 
screwed rusty spurs into patent-leather shoes, 
and clothed his head indifferently with a hel- 
met or a turban. Soured, old, worn with heat 
and cold, he waited till he should be entitled to 
sufficient pension to keep him from starving. 

“Tallantire,” said he, disregarding Grish 
Chunder De, “come outside. I want to speak 
to you.” They withdrew. “It’s this,” con- 


THE DISTRICT 


323 


tinued Curbar. “The Khusru Kheyl have 
rushed and cut up half a dozen of the coolies 
on Ferris’s new canal-embankment; killed a 
couple of men and carried off a woman. I 
wouldn’t trouble you about that — Ferris is af- 
ter them and Hugonin, my assistant, with ten 
mounted police. But that’s only the beginning, 
I fancy. Their fires are out on the Flassan Ar- 
deb heights, and unless we’re pretty quick 
there’ll be a flare-up all along our Border. 
They are sure to raid the four Khusru villages 
on our side of the line; there’s been bad blood 
between them for years; and you know the 
Blind Mullah has been preaching a holy war 
since Orde went out. What’s your notion?” 

“Damn !” said Tallantire, thoughtfully. 
“They’ve begun quick. Well, it seems to me 
I’d beter ride off to Fort Ziar and get what 
men I can there to picket among the lowland 
villages, if it’s not too late. Tommy Dodd com- 
mands at Fort Ziar, I think. Ferris and Hu- 
gonin ought to teach the canal-thieves a lesson, 
and — No, we can’t have the Head of the Po- 
lice ostentatiously guarding the Treasury. You 
go back to the canal. I’ll wire Bullows to come 
into Jumala with a strong police-guard, and 
sit on the Treasury. They won’t touch the 
place, but it looks well.” 


324 


THE HEAD OF 


“I — I — I insist upon knowing what this 
means,” said the voice of the Deputy Commis- 
sioner, who had followed the speakers. 

“Oh !” said Curbar, who being in the Police 
could not understand that fifteen years of edu- 
cation, must, on principle, change the Bengali 
into a Briton. “There has been a fight on the 
Border, and heaps of men are killed. There’s 
going to be another fight, and heaps more will 
be killed.” 

“What for?” 

“Because the teeming millions of this dis- 
trict don’t exactly approve of you, and think 
that under your benign rule they are going to 
have a good time. It strikes me that you had 
better make arangements. I act, as you know, 
by your orders. What do you advise ?” 

“I — I take you all to witness that I have not 
yet assumed charge of the district,” stam- 
mered the Deputy Commissioner, not in the 
tones of the “more English.” 

“Ah, I thought so. Well, as I was saying, 
Tallantire, your plan is sound. Carry it out. 
Do you want an escort?” 

“No; only a decent horse. But how about 
wiring to headquarters ?” 

“I fancy, from the color of his cheeks, that 
your superior officer will send some wonderful 


THE DISTRICT 


325 


telegrams before the night’s over. Let him do 
that, and we shall have half the troops of the 
province coming up to see what’s the trouble. 
Well, run along, and take care of yourself— 
the Khusru Kheyl jab upward from below, 
remember. Ho! Mir Khan, give Tallantire 
Sahib the best of the horses, and tell five men 
to ride to Jumala with the Deputy Com- 
missioner Sahib Bahadur. There is a hurry 
toward.” 

There was ; and it was not in the least bet- 
tered by Debendra Nath De clinging to a po- 
liceman’s bridle and demanding the shortest, 
the very shortest way to Jumala. Now origi- 
nality is fatal to the Bengali. Debendra Nath 
should have stayed with his brother, who rode 
steadfastly for Jumala on the railway-line, 
thanking gods entirely unknown to the most 
catholic of universities that he had not taken 
charge of the district, and could still— happy 
resource of a fertile race ! — fall sick. 

And I grieve to say that when he reached 
his goal two policemen, not devoid of rude wit, 
who. had been conferring together as they 
bumped in their saddles, arranged an entertain- 
ment for his behoof. It consisted of first one 
and then the other entering his room with pro- 
digious details of war, the massing of blood- 


326 


THE HEAD OF 


thirsty and devilish tribes, and the burning of 
towns. It was almost as good, said these 
scamps, as riding with Curbar after evasive 
Afghans. Each invention kept the hearer at 
work for half an hour on telegrams which the 
sack of Delhi would hardly have justified. To 
every power that could move a bayonet or 
transfer a terrified man, Grish Chunder De ap- 
pealed telegraphically. He was alone, his as- 
sistants had fled, and in truth he had not taken 
over charge of the district. Had the telegrams 
been despatched many things would have oc- 
curred; but since the only signaller in Jumala 
had gone to bed, and the station-master, after 
one look at the tremendous pile of paper, dis- 
covered that railway regulations forbade the 
forwarding of imperial messages, Policemen 
Ram Singh and Nihal Singh were fain to turn 
the stuff into a pillow and slept on it very 
comfortably. 

Tallantire drove his spurs into a rampant 
skewbald stallion with china-blue eyes, and set- 
tled himself for the forty-mile ride to Fort 
Ziar. Knowing his district blindfold, he 
wasted no time hunting for short cuts, but 
headed across the richer grazing-ground to the 
ford where Orde had died and been buried. 
The dusty ground deadened the noise of his 
horse’s hoofs, the moon threw his shadow, a 


THE DISTRICT 


327 


restless goblin, before him, and the heavy dew 
drenched him to the skin. Hillock, scrub that 
brushed against the horse’s belly, unmetalled 
road where the whip-like foliage of the tamar- 
isks lashed his forehead, illimitable levels of 
lowland furred with bent and speckled and 
drowsing cattle, waste, and hillock anew, 
dragged themselves past, and the skewbald 
was laboring in the deep sand of the Indus- 
ford. Tallantire was conscious of no distinct 
thought till the nose of the dawdling ferry- 
boat grounded on the farther side, and his 
horse shied snorting at the white headstone of 
Orde’s grave. Then he uncovered and shouted 
that the dead might hear, “They’re out, old 
man! Wish me luck.” In the chill of the 
dawn he was hammering with a stirrup-iron 
at the gate of Fort Ziar, where fifty sabres of 
that tattered regiment, the Belooch Beshaklis 
were supposed to guard Her Majesty’s inter- 
ests along a few hundred miles of Border. 
This particular fort was commanded by a sub- 
altern, who, born of the ancient family of the 
Derouletts, naturally answered to the name of 
Tommy Dodd. Him Tallantire found robed 
in a sheepskin coat, shaking with fever like an 
aspen, and trying to read the native apothe- 
cary’s list of invalids. 


1328 


THE HEAD OF 


“So you’ve come to,” said he. “Well, we’re 
all sick here, and I don’t think I can horse 
thirty men; but we’re bub — bub- — bub blessed 
willing. Stop, does this impress you as a trap 
or a lie?” He tossed a scrap of paper to Tal- 
lantire, on which was written painfully in 
crabbed Gurmukhi, “We cannot hold young 
horses. They will feed after the moon goes 
down in the four Border villages issuing from 
the Jagai pass on the next night.” Then in 
English round hand — “Your sincere friend.” 

“Good man!” said Tallantire. “That’s 
Khoda Dad Khan’s work, I know. It’s the 
only piece of English he could ever keep in 
his head, and he is immensely proud of it. He 
is playing against the Blind Mullah for his 
own hand — the treacherous young ruffian!” 

“Don’t know the politics of the Khusru 
Kheyl, but if you’re satisfied, I am. That 
was pitched in over the gatehead last night, 
and I thought we might pull ourselves to- 
gether and see what was on. Oh, but we’re 
sick with fever here and no mistake! Is this 
going to be a big business, think you?” said 
Tommy Dodd. 

Tallantire gave him briefly the outlines of 
the case, and Tommy Dodd whistled and shook 
with fever alternately. That day he devoted to 
strategy, the art of war, and the enlivenment 


THE DISTRICT 


329 


of the invalids, till at dusk there stood ready 
forty-two troopers, lean, worn, and disheveled, 
whom Tommy Dodd surveyed with pride, and 
addressed thus : “O men! If you die you will 
go to Hell. Therefore endeavor to keep alive. 
But if you go to Hell that place cannot be hot- 
ter than this place, and we are not told that 
we shall there suffer from fever. Consequently 
be not afraid of dying. File out there !” They 
grinned, and went. 


V 

It will be long ere the Khusru Kheyl forget 
their night attack on the lowland villages. The 
Mullah had promised an easy victory and un- 
limited plunder; but behold, armed troopers of 
the Queen had risen out of the very earth, 
cutting, slashing, and riding down under the 
stars, so that no man knew where to turn, and 
all feared that they had brought an army about 
their ears, and ran back to the hills. In the 
panic of that flight more men were seen to 
drop from wounds inflicted by an Afghan 
knife jabbed upward, and yet more from long- 
range carbine-fire. Then there rose a cry of 
treachery, and when they reached their own 
guarded heights, they had left, with some forty 
dead and sixty wounded, all their confidence 


330 


THE HEAD OF 


in the Blind Mullah on the plains below. They 
clamored, swore, and argued round the fires; 
the women wailing for the lost, and the Mullah 
shrieking curses .on the returned. 

Then Khoda Dad Khan, eloquent and un- 
breathed, for he had taken no part in the fight, 
rose to improve the occasion. He pointed out 
that the tribe owed every item of its present 
misfortune to the Blind Mullah, who had lied 
in every possible particular and talked them 
into a trap. It was undoubtedly an insult that 
a Bengali, the son of a Bengali, should pre- 
sume to administer the Border, but that fact 
did not, as the Mullah pretended, herald a 
general time of license and lifting; and the 
inexplicable madness of the English had not 
in the least impaired their power of guarding 
their marches. On the contrary, the baffled 
and out-generalled tribe would now, just when 
their food-stock was lowest, be blockaded from 
any trade with Hindustan until they had sent 
hostages for good behavior, paid compensation 
for disturbance, and blood-money at the rate 
of thirty-six English pounds per head for 
every villager that they might have slain. “And 
ye know that those lowland dogs will make 
oath that we have slain scores. Will the Mul- 
lah pay the fines or must we sell our guns?” 


THE DISTRICT 


33i 


A low growl ran round the fires. “Now, see- 
ing that all this is the Mullah’s work, and that 
we have gained nothing but promises of Para- 
dise thereby, it is in my heart that we of the 
Khusru Kheyl lack a shrine whereat to pray. 
We are weakened, and henceforth how shall 
we dare to cross into the Madar Kheyl border, 
as has been our custom, to kneel to Pir Saji’s 
tomb ? The Madar men will fall upon us, and 
rightly. But our Mullah is a holy man. He 
has helped two score of us into Paradise this 
night. Let him therefore accompany his flock, 
and we will build over his body a dome of the 
blue tiles of Mooltan, and burn lamps at his 
feet every Friday night. He shall be a saint; 
we shall have a shrine ; and there our women 
shall pray for fresh seed to fill the gaps in our 
fighting-tale. How think you?” 

A grim chuckle followed the suggestion, and 
the soft wheep, wheep of unscabbarded knives 
followed the chuckle. It was an excellent 
notion, and met a long felt want of the tribe. 
The Mullah sprang to his feet, glaring with 
withered eyeballs at the drawn death he could 
not see, and calling down the curses of God 
and Mahomed on the tribe. Then began a 
game of blind man’s buff round and between 
the fires, whereof Khuruk Shah, the tribal 
poet, has sung in verse that will not die. 


33 2 


THE HEAD OF 


They tickled him gently under the armpit 
with the knife-point. He leaped aside scream- 
ing, only to feel a cold blade drawn lightly 
over the back of his neck, or a rifle-muzzle rub- 
bing his beard. He called on his adherents to 
aid him, but most of these lay dead on the 
plains, for Khoda Dad Khan had been at some 
pains to arrange their decease. Men described 
to him the glories of the shrine they would 
build, and the little children clapping their 
hands cried, “Run, Mullah, run! There’s a 
man behind you !” In the end, when the sport 
wearied, Khoda Dad Khan’s brother sent a 
knife home between his ribs. “Wherefore,” 
said Khoda Dad Khan with charming sim- 
plicity, “I am now Chief of the Khusru 
Kheyl!” No man gainsaid him; and they all 
went to sleep very stiff and sore. 

On the plain below Tommy Dodd was lec- 
turing on the beauties of a cavalry charge by 
night, and Tallantire, bowed on his saddle, was 
gasping hysterically because there was a sword 
dangling from his wrist flecked with the blood 
of the Khusru Kheyl, the tribe that Orde had 
kept in leash so well. When a Rajpoot trooper 
pointed out that the skewbald’s right ear had 
been taken off at the root, by some blind slash 
of its unskilled rider, Tallantire broke down 


THE DISTRICT 


333 


altogether, and laughed and sobbed till Tommy 
Dodd made him lie down and rest. 

“We must wait about till the morning,” 
said he. “I wired to the Colonel just before 
we left, to send a wing of the Beshaklis after 
us. He’ll be furious with me for monopoliz- 
ing the fun, though. Those beggars in the 
hills won’t give us any more trouble.” 

“Then tell the Beshaklis to go on and see 
what has happened to Curbar on the canal. 
We must patrol the whole line of the Border. 
You’re quite sure, Tommy, that — that stuff 
was — was only the skewbald’s ear?” 

“Oh, quite,” said Tommy. “You just 
missed cutting off his head. I saw you when 
we went into the mess. Sleep, old man.” 

Noon brought two squadrons of Beshaklis 
and a knot of furious brother officers demand- 
ing the court-martial of Tommy Dodd for 
“spoiling the picnic,” and a gallop across coun- 
try to the canal-works where Ferris, Curbar, 
and Hugonin were haranguing the terror- 
stricken coolies on the enormity of abandoning 
good work and high pay, merely because half 
a dozen of their fellows had been cut down. 
The sight of a troop of the Beshaklis restored 
wavering confidence, and the police-hunted 
section of the Khusru Kheyl had the joy of 
watching the canal-bank humming with life 


334 


THE HEAD OF 


as usual, while such of their men as had taken 
refuge in the water-courses and ravines were 
being driven out by the troopers. By sun- 
down began the remorseless patrol of the 
Border by police and trooper, most like the 
cow-boys’ eternal ride round restless cattle. 

“Now,” said Khoda Dad Khan to his fel- 
lows, pointing out a line of twinkling fires 
below, “ye may see how far the old order 
changes. After their horse will come the little 
devil-guns that they can drag up to the tops 
of the hills, and, for aught I know, to the 
clouds when we crown the hills. If the tribe- 
council thinks good, I will go to Tallantire 
Sahib — who loves me — and see if I can stave 
off at least the blockade. Do I speak for 
the tribe?” 

“Ay, speak for the tribe in God’s name. 
How those accursed fires wink ! Do the Eng- 
lish send their troops on the wire — or is this 
the work of the Bengali?” 

As Khoda Dad Khan went down the hill he 
was delayed by an interview with a hard- 
pressed tribesman, which caused him to return 
hastily for something he had forgotten. Then, 
handing himself over to the two troopers who 
had been chasing his friend, he claimed escort 
to Tallantire Sahib, then with Bullows at 


THE DISTRICT 


335 

Jumala. The Border was safe, and the time 
for reasons in writing had begun. 

“Thank Heaven !” said Bullows, “that the 
trouble came at once. Of course we can 
never put down the reason in black and white, 
but all India will understand. And it is better 
to have a sharp short outbreak than five years 
of impotent adminstration inside the Border. 
It costs less. Grish Chunder De has reported 
himself sick, and has been transferred to his 
own province without any sort of reprimand. 
He was strong on not having taken over the 
district.” 

“Of course,” said Tallantire, bitterly. 
“Well, what am I supposed to have done that 
was wrong?” 

“Oh, you will be told that you exceeded all 
your powers, and should have reported, and 
written, and advised for three weeks until the 
Khusru Kheyl could really come down in 
force. But I don’t think the authorities will 
dare to make a fuss about it. They’ve had 
their lesson. Have you seen Curbar’s version 
of the affair? He can’t write a report, but he 
can speak the truth.” 

“What’s the use of the truth? He’d much 
better tear up the report. I’m sick and heart- 
broken over it all. It was so utterly unneces- 
sary — except in that it rid us of that Babu.” 


336 


THE HEAD OF 


Entered unabashed Khoda Dad Khan, a 
stuffed forage-net in his hand, and the troop- 
ers behind him. 

“May you never be tired ! ” said he, cheerily. 
“Well, Sahibs, that was a good fight, and 
Naim Shah’s mother is in debt to you, Tallan- 
tire Sahib. A clean cut, they tell me, through 
jaw, wadded coat, and deep into the collar- 
bone. Well done! But I speak for the tribe. 
There has been a fault — a great fault. Thou 
knowest that I and mine, Tallantire Sahib, kept 
the oath we sware to Orde Sahib on the banks 
of the Indus.” 

“As an Afghan keeps his knife — sharp on 
one side, blunt on the other,” said Tallantire. 

“The better swing in the blow, then. But 
I speak God’s truth. Only the Blind Mullah 
carried the young men on the tip of his tongue, 
and said that there was no more Border-law 
because a Bengali had been sent, and we 
need not fear the English at all. So they 
came down to avenge that insult and get plun- 
der. Ye know what befell, and how far I 
helped. Now five score of us are dead or 
wounded, and we are all shamed and sorry, 
and desire no further war. Moreover, that 
ye may better listen to us, we have taken off 
the head of the Blind Mullah, whose evil 


THE DISTRICT, 


337 


counsels have led us to folly. I bring it for 
proof,” — and he heaved on the floor the head. 
“He will give no more trouble, for / am chief 
now, and so I sit in a higher place at all audi- 
ences. Yet there is an offset to this head. 
That was another fault. One of the men 
found that black Bengali beast, through 
whom this trouble arose, wandering on horse- 
back and weeping. Reflecting that he had 
caused loss of much good life, Alla Dad 
Khan, whom, if you choose, I will to-morrow 
shoot, whipped off this head, and I bring it to 
you to cover your shame, that ye may bury it. 
See, no man kept the spectacles, though they 
were of gold.” 

Slowly rolled to Tallantire’s feet the crop- 
haired head of a spectacled Bengali gentle- 
man, opened-eyed, open-mouthed — the head 
of Terror incarnate. Bullows bent down. 
“Yet another blood-fine and a heavy one, 
Khoda Dad Khan, for this is the head of 
Debendra Nath, the man’s brother. The 
Babu is safe long since. All but the fools 
of the Khusru Kheyl know that.” 

“Well, I care not for carrion. Quick meat 
for me. The thing was under our hills ask- 
ing the road to Jumala and Alla Dad Khan 
showed him the road to Jehannum, being, as 


33$ 


THE HEAD OE 


thou sayest, but a fool. Remains now what 
the Government will do to us. As to the 
blockade’’ — 

“Who art thou, seller of dog’s flesh,” thun- 
dered Tallantire, "to speak of terms > and 
treaties? Get hence to the hills — go, and 
wait there starving, till it shall please the Gov- 
ernment to call thy people out for punishment 
— children and fools that ye be ! Count your 
dead, and be still. Rest assured that the 
Government will send you a man!” 

' “Ay,” returned Khoda Dad Khan, "for we 
also be men.” 

As he looked Tallantire between the eyes, 
he added, "And by God, Sahib, may thou be 
that man!” 


LB Mr 23 


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